The Virginia Mysteries Collection: Books 1-3

by Steven K. Smith

  FIVE

  Sam whipped along the dirt trail on his bike. He was moving fast—probably too fast from the way the trees were flying by him. He didn’t like riding so fast, but he had to keep up with Derek. He didn’t want to be riding through the narrow paths by himself. His mountain bike hopped and jumped over all the bumps and small rocks jutting out of the trail.

  There were two types of trails on Belle Isle. A wide, oval-shaped, walking trail ran around the perimeter, while more advanced trails cut through the middle of the island. These narrower paths were littered with steep climbs and drops that wove through trees and bushes, just wide enough for a single hiker or biker. Sam preferred the less treacherous, wider trails on the outside loop, but Derek kept leading him farther into the interior maze.

  Belle Isle was right on the edge of the city, although looking around at the woods and the rapids, Sam felt that he could be a hundred miles away from Richmond. The James River flowed around both sides of the island, but the two sides were starkly different. The north side pressed right up against the rapids, with fast moving water coming right up to the shore in some spots. When the river was high, one false move and a biker could be washed away in the current. The south side was a shallow trickle of water spread between a wide expanse of flat rocks.

  Being on the island reminded him of the time his dad took him into New York City for a baseball game. Before the game, they had hiked around Central Park. Sam had no idea that there were such secluded places in the biggest city in the country. He remembered thinking that he wouldn’t want to be in Central Park alone at night. He thought of Mr. Haskins’ story about camping on the island and had the same feeling about Belle Isle.

  Sam’s back tire slid around another blind corner, and he finally saw Derek’s bike up ahead. It was leaning against a washing-machine-sized boulder on the side of the trail. Sam braked, steadying himself with one foot on the ground. Sweat dripped down his face as he unbuckled his bike helmet to let his head cool off. It was still morning, but July in Virginia was always hot.

  He stepped off his bike and leaned it next to Derek’s on the rock. He glanced around the thick woods but saw no trace of his brother. Where had he gone now?

  Following a narrow path from the bike trail, Sam came upon the ruins of an old brick building. Giant vines and ivy scaled the crusty bricks of a lone wall, probably fifty feet long, the only remnant of a building now long gone. Pieces were missing from sections of the wall, victims of time, or just a mischievous visitor. A green heart was spray painted on the bricks next to a wide archway that had once served as a door. Sam rolled his eyes. He didn’t like graffiti, but even so, if he was going to go to the trouble of drawing something on a building, he wouldn’t paint a heart.

  He wandered along the wall, gazing at the decades of wear written on the bricks. He thought again about Mr. Haskins’ story, how the island had been a prisoner-of-war camp. That part was true, he had discovered, when they'd found an information board by the bridge when they arrived. He wondered how many prisoners had tried to escape. How many had been shot? Maybe the whole island really was a graveyard. It gave him the creeps just thinking about it.

  “Hey, what are you doing there!” a voice barked out.

  Sam jumped into the air in surprise. By the time his feet touched the dirt again, he had realized it was Derek’s voice. His brother sauntered out from behind one of the brick archways, a smile stretched wide across his face.

  “What’s the matter, Sam? You look like you saw a ghost!”

  “How’d you like to be a ghost? Why do you have to scare me like that? I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “I’m sorry, man. Jeez. Nature called, you know what I mean? If you gotta go, you gotta go.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” said Sam, moving back along the wall. “You could have waited for me.”

  “Sure, next time I’ll make an announcement across the whole island that I’ve got to pee.”

  “Perfect, thanks,” replied Sam, turning toward the bikes. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” called Derek. “What do you think this place is? It’s pretty cool.”

  “It might be from the prisoner's camp,” said Sam. “Or it could have been the nail factory.”

  “That's more likely. But you won’t believe what I found down this hidden trail back here.” Derek walked back behind the wall.

  “What is it?” Sam asked.

  “Just come on. You have to see it.”

  Sam reluctantly followed. He’d rather not take Derek’s word for whatever he had seen, and he wasn’t going to stand there next to that creepy wall by himself. The best way to avoid any more surprises would be to keep Derek where he could see him.

  SIX

  Derek led the way down the narrow dirt path that wound through the woods, away from the brick wall. It seemed to head toward the river, if Sam remembered the direction of the water correctly. He strained his eyes to see a clearing ahead through the tree branches. As they moved closer, an old building loomed over them. The walls were partially covered with vines, and paint was peeling off in big chunks. Graffiti had been sprayed in a dozen different places.

  “What is this place, Derek?”

  “I think it’s the old hydro plant. Remember Alex telling us about it on the bus last spring?”

  “Oh, yeah,” said Sam. The hydroelectric plant had used fast moving water to make electricity. From the looks of things, there hadn’t been anyone using it to make electricity or anything else for a long time. Dark shadows cast a gloom over the whole area. There were windows and doors in the walls, but iron bars blocked them like an old prison cell.

  “Are we supposed to be back here?” asked Sam.

  “It looks like someone else has been here.” Derek answered, pointing inside the bars of the doorway. “Check it out.” A pile of cigarette butts and empty beer bottles were scattered in a corner. “It’s like a hideout.”

  “Not anyplace I’d like to hide,” said Sam, peering through the bars of the doorway. He could see into an open room whose high ceiling stretched up close to thirty feet above him. As Sam pulled his head back, he saw Derek scaling the metal bars, climbing toward an opening in the bars over their heads at the top of the doorway.

  “Derek! What are you doing? Get down!”

  Derek ignored him and continued climbing, reaching the opening and sliding his leg over to the other side. He quickly maneuvered his legs over to the other side, jumping down the last few feet and landing on the dirt below.

  “What are you going to do now?” said Sam, looking through the bars.

  Derek grabbed the metal bars tightly, pretending to shake them with a desperate look on his face. “I’m innocent! Innocent, I tell ya!”

  “Quit it,” said Sam. “Come on, get out of there before you get hurt. If somebody comes along, you’re going to get us both in trouble.”

  Derek didn’t seem to be listening. He was exploring around the inside of the room with his usual curiosity for anything dangerous. He walked to the middle of the floor, studying three rectangular concrete footings that were framed in rusty iron. “I bet these held the power generators.”

  Derek stepped to the middle wall and inspected three circular, metal sections that were lined up evenly with each of the footings in the floor. From where Sam was standing, each piece looked about six feet in diameter and reminded him of a huge air lock door in a submarine. The kind that in the movies the hero had to squeeze through and lock down by turning a wheel-shaped handle just before a flood of water filled the room. But here, instead of a handle at the center, each section had an open circle about two feet wide and fitted with collar of bolts.

  Derek traced one of the smaller circles with his hand. “I bet that something went from the generators on the floor over there and into these circle fittings to control the water.” He bent down and felt the dirt on the floor. “It’s almost like sand. There must have been a lot of water moving through here.”

  Sam ima
gined water suddenly filling the room—thousands of gallons rushing through the openings in the wall. Derek would be washed away and spit out into the river, or maybe chopped up in the electricity turbines or whatever they used.

  Despite his anxiety, Sam had to admit that the building was pretty cool. The crumbling walls and ceiling reminded him of a scene from the Spiderman movie they’d seen last summer. He shivered at the thought of an evil creature emerging from the shadows.

  Derek had slid through one of the center holes, landing in the adjoining room. “I think there’s something written over here,” he called, interrupting Sam’s thoughts.

  “Come on, Derek, there’s plenty to look at on the outside. Why don’t you get out of there.” It was probably more graffiti that he’d found. The whole place was like a spray painter’s dream house.

  “Cool!” Derek’s voice echoed from the new room, out of Sam’s view.

  “What is it?”

  “Get in here. You have to see this.”

  Sam didn’t want to get in there. He wanted to leave. But he knew that Derek wouldn’t leave until he came in and looked. Just for a second, Sam decided.

  He put a foot onto the metal bars and started scaling the side of the building like he’d seen Derek do. As he draped his leg over the opening at the top, he glanced down and felt dizzy. He was only about twelve feet up, but it seemed like thirty.

  “Come on, Sam, get in here!” called Derek.

  Sam closed his eyes to block out the heights and swung his other leg over the top bar. He inched one foothold at a time down the other side, thinking the entire time about what a stupid thing it was that he was doing. The worst part about it, he realized, was that he’d have to climb back over to get out, unless there was another exit.

  Sam’s shoes crunched on the loose gravel as he dropped into the room. He walked over to the closest metal section on the wall and leaned his head through the round opening in the center. To his surprise, the new room was even bigger than the first. Derek stood by the far wall, his head back, staring up at something.

  “What do you see?”

  Derek didn’t answer him, so Sam climbed through the opening, his legs scraping against the rusty metal edges as he went. He wondered what kind of terrible disease he could catch from this place. “What is so awesome that you can’t—” Sam stopped mid-sentence as he matched Derek’s stare at the wall. “Oh, man…what is that?”

  Sam backed up next to Derek so he could take in the entire wall. A huge painting, almost like a mural, covered the wall. Stretching from the floor to the ceiling twenty feet above was a shadowy picture of a rounded head with deep scary eyes. Below the face was a rectangle with a big X through it.

  “It looks like a ghost, doesn’t it?” said Derek. “But I don’t know what that X is for.”

  “We need to get out of here, now,” said Sam, backing away from the wall. “Beer bottles, cigarettes, walls with ghosts, this can’t be good. Kids didn’t do this. This looks like a grownup place, and I don’t want to be here when they get back.” He tried to force the word ghost out of his mind.

  “Oh relax, this could be from a long time ago,” said Derek. “This place is probably a hundred years old. I’ll bet no one even knows it’s here. You can’t see it from the trails.”

  “Exactly,” answered Sam. “Secluded spots in the woods. Those are the kinds of places where bad things happen. Don’t you watch TV? Who knows what kind of crazy psycho might live out here. There’s a reason why there are bars on the windows and doors. We’re not supposed to be in here.”

  “Sam, there you go with your—,” Derek suddenly stopped talking, holding his hand up at the same time. “Did you hear that?” he whispered, ducking down.

  “Very funny. You don’t have to make fun of me. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “Shh. I’m not kidding.” Derek’s face looked dead serious. “Listen. Voices.”

  Sam stopped arguing and listened. He did hear voices faintly echoing below the room. He darted his head back and forth, trying to think of where to go. This was just what he was afraid of. “We have to get out of here!”

  “Shh!” Derek hissed again. “Be quiet and follow me.” He rushed back to the metal opening and climbed through.

  The voices were getting louder. Sam could also hear feet clomping up metal stairs. There must be an entrance on the river side that they hadn’t seen. He followed Derek through the opening, raising his legs carefully over the rusty corners. As he slid into the first room, Derek was already halfway up the bars on the doorway. Sam didn’t have time to think about being scared of the height now. He just leaped onto the metal and climbed.

  As Sam swung his leg over the top, he heard a loud metallic groan come from the room they had just been in. Men’s voices were loud now, and he realized there must be a staircase with a metal trap door into the room. He turned to scurry down the outside of the bars when something stopped his leg. Fear zipped through his body. He looked to see what had grabbed him. It was only his shoelace, caught on a sharp piece of the metal.

  “Come on, Sam!” Derek was already standing on the trail, hissing at him.

  Sam reached back and pulled at the lace, but it wouldn’t come loose. The voices were in the room now, so he pulled the shoe off his foot, freed the lace, and threw it down to the ground. He slipped down the remaining bars until he reached the earth, surprised that he hadn’t fallen and broken his neck, and raced over to Derek at the edge of the woods.

  For once, Derek seemed content to leave without finding out what was going on. They followed the trail that they’d come in on, running quickly but quietly, gradually moving out of earshot of the voices. They passed the archway in the old brick wall and leaped onto their bikes.

  “Let’s go,” said Derek, kicking his pedals into motion.

  Sam didn’t argue. He’d never been so glad to see his trusty bike. Soon they were back on the trail, tearing through the woods faster than ever.

  SEVEN

  Sam tried to keep up, but Derek had got ahead of him again. At a split in the trail, Sam hesitated on which way to go. To the left seemed flatter, but it was the long way around the island. He didn’t want to go the long way. He wanted to catch up with Derek and get home. He was all done exploring Belle Isle. To the right seemed quicker, but it was a steep trail down. He imagined what Derek would say to him if he was there. He’d probably call Sam a chicken or something.

  Sam decided to be brave and chose the steep path. His fingers firmly squeezed the right hand brake for the rear tire, his left hand ready to spring to action on the front tire brake if he needed to stop quickly. As he descended the steepest part, Sam tried to keep his balance and his wits while letting the bike do the work. He refused to look to the right, where the edge of the path had eroded over the side of the hill.

  He looked ahead when he was about halfway down the slope. Derek was waiting at the bottom. Sam breathed a sigh of relief and continued down the steep grade with more confidence.

  “Sam, look out!” his brother suddenly shouted, pointing up the hill to Sam’s left.

  Sam turned to look, but before he had time to squeeze his hand brake, three blurs of motion cut in front of him with a yell. Sam was so surprised that he jerked his handlebars to the right to avoid a crash.

  “Watch out, kid!” Three teenagers on bikes buzzed on down the trail, their tires kicking dirt up in Sam’s face.

  Sam’s front wheel slipped over the edge of the incline, sending him and his bike hurtling down the side of the hill. “Whoa!” he cried, plummeting forward like a one-man runaway train. He fishtailed through the undergrowth, gaining speed toward a big rock. When he squeezed both brakes in a panic, his front wheel locked, shifting his weight forward and sending him flying right over the handlebars.

  Sam sailed through the air in what seemed like slow motion. He saw Derek’s mouth open wide in a yell, his hands waving like a second base cut off man. The three teenagers had skidded to a stop next to Derek and we
re doubled over laughing. Sam landed hard on the far edge of the lower trail, time spinning back into regular speed. His body rolled twice, coming to a stop in the weeds.

  “Sam!” Derek rushed over to the crash site. “Are you alright?”

  Sam spit a wad of dirt and gravel out of his mouth. “I…I think so...” He sat up slowly, testing his arms and legs to make sure everything still worked. His knee throbbed and he saw blood dripping from his arm, but at least he was alive. His bike was perched at an angle against the big rock on the hill. He reached up and unlatched his helmet strap.

  “Nice job, daredevil!” one of the teenagers laughed. He turned to Derek. “Hey, Jackson, you know this little squirt? Hope you didn’t teach him how to ride a bike.”

  “Shut up, Cameron,” said Derek. “Just leave him alone, will you? Why don’t you guys watch where you’re riding?”

  Derek pulled Sam off the ground gently. “Can you walk?”

  “I think so.” Sam pushed his hand against the ground and stood. His right leg and arm were covered in an ugly mix of blood and gravel.

  “Watch where you’re going, kid,” one of the boys cackled. “Next time you cross our path you might not be so lucky.”

  Sam shot the three teenagers as mean a glare as he could muster.

  “What? Don’t believe us? Just ask your brother what it’s like in big-boy school. Enjoy your summer, Jackson. Rest up. September will be here before you know it.”

  Derek helped Sam brush off, ignoring the other boys as they rode away.

  “See ya soon, Jackson!” one of them screamed, as they rode down the path and out of sight.

  Derek climbed through the brush to carry Sam’s bike down the hill. He set it on the trail, spinning the front wheel to see if it was rideable. There was a slight wobble, but it wasn’t too bad. “Whoa, look at your helmet! It’s cracked!”