Loose ends r-1

by Greg Cox

Liz felt sorry for Alex's bruised feelings, but she was too freaked-out herself to do much more than try to bring the discussion back to where they started. "But even if you're right, Alex, if I'm really suffering from this post- traumatic stress disorder, what am I supposed to do about it? I feel like I'm having a nervous breakdown." One booth and a highchair away, the unhappy baby yowled again, causing Liz to grip the edge of the table with white knuckles. The spoon banged against the tray, and she had to clench her teeth to keep from jumping out of her skin. "How," she asked, after the torturous moment passed, "am I supposed to get over this?"I don't know," Alex confessed quietly, his concern for Liz taking priority over his problems with Isabel. "Ideally, according to the psych textbooks I read, you ought to get special counseling from an expert trained in treating P.T.S.D., but I guess that's not really an option in this case, unless you want to spill the beans about you-know-what to some shrink." He nervously cast a sideways glance at Isabel, acutely aware that she wasn't going to like that idea.

  "No," she said immediately, rejecting that notion once and for all. She had already placed Max's secret in danger too many times; no matter how messed-up she was, she wasn't going to let her problems jeopardize anyone else's safety again. "Talking to a psychiatrist is out."Alex nodded. "I figured as much. In that case, all I can recommend, based on what I've read, is that you shouldn't try to repress the traumatic memories again, because you've got to acknowledge the stress before you can work through it." His angular face was full of sympathy and regret. "Somehow or another, you need to confront your repressed fears and anxieties regarding the shooting, and come to terms with them." He shrugged glumly. "Easier said than done, I know."Tell me about it, Hz thought bitterly. I can't even confront a load/firing car- or a crying baby-without falling to pieces.

  "You know we're here for you," Maria reminded her gently. She slid one of her tiny translucent vials across the table toward Liz. "We all are."I know," Liz said gratefully, offering a weak smile in return. She dutifully sniffed from the miniature vial, more to please Maria than in any serious expectation of deriving comfort or peace of mind from the bottled scent. Despite the pungent odor, she couldn't help worrying about Max, however, and wondering what had become oi Mm and Michael. They had been gone for a couple of hours now, without checking in. Liz knew that part of her would never be able to relax until she knew that Max was okay. What if Morton had surprised them somehow? What if he was pointing his gun at Max right this very moment? Crash! The irate baby pounded upon his tray like it was a cymbal, the constant rat-a-tat-tat causing Liz to flinch visibly with every beat. The infant's high- pitched squeals climbed into the upper decibels, drowning out the restaurant's overhead Muzak system and pushing Liz close to the breaking point. How was she supposed to think, let alone confront her fears, with that hellish caterwauling going on? She pressed her hands against her ears, desperately trying to hide from the noise. She squeezed her eyes shut, only to see Joe Morton rise up from her tormented imagination, waving his handgun wildly in the middle of the Crash-down. In her mind, the baby's shrill cries merged with Maria's screams of terror as the pistol went off, rat-a-tat-tat, unleashing a hail of bullets that turned a row of stacked water glasses into a rain of broken shards before striking Liz right below her ribs, again and again and again. "Stop it," she whimpered hoarsely, tears leaking from the corners of her eyes. "I can't stand it anymore!" It was unclear, even to her, if she was talking about the baby or the flashbacks. "Please, make it stop."Hang on," Isabel said decisively. Without another word, she deftly slipped out of the booth and strolled casually toward the salad bar, passing the screaming baby's highchair on the way. Only those who knew her well, and were privy to her special talents, would have noticed the way her slender fingers brushed the back of the highchair as she sauntered by.

  A second later, the baby slammed the rounded bowl of his spoon against the tray again. Instead of producing a sharp knock, however, this time the impact yielded only a soft, gooey splat. Confused and startled, the puzzled infant stopped crying long enough to examine his former noise-maker, an intrigued expression upon its chubby little face. Experimentally, it stuck the spoon in its mouth, and immediately started gurgling happily, almost as if the stainless steel utensil had miraculously changed into some kind of chewy chocolate treat. By then, of course, Isabel was al- ready on her way back from the salad bar with a couple of fresh breadsticks.

  "Thank you," Liz said sincerely, drying her eyes on a napkin. It was a small mercy, but one she appreciated immensely. If only all our problems could be solved so easily, she thought, and with so little danger.

  Where were Max and Michael?

  8.

  Over three hundred thousand bats currently reside in the bat cave below," the park ranger announced. "Mexican free-tailed bats, to be exact. At the moment, they're sleeping upside down inside the cavern, about a half-mile past the main entrance, but soon all three hundred thousand will come spiraling out of the cave in search of dinner: mostly moths, mosquitoes, and other flying insects. Trust me, it's a pretty impressive sight when all those bats come flapping out of the cave all at once!"Dozens of tourists packed the outdoor amphitheater, waiting for one of Carlsbad Caverns's biggest attractions: the nightly Bat Flight. Constructed of solid stone and concrete, the amphitheater looked down onto the natural entrance of the main cavern, a dark oval gap at the bottom of a rocky cliff. To the west, the sun was already sinking toward the horizon, so the expectant throng knew that the bats would be making their promised appearance soon. Restless children, bored by the ranger's educational lecture, climbed up and down the wide stone steps of the amphitheater, squirmed impatiently between their parents, or attempted to frighten their younger siblings with black rubber bats purchased earlier at a souvenir shop. Near the back of the open-air theater, some joker played the theme music from Batman on his portable boombox.

  "Why are we here again?" Max asked, as impatient as any of the unruly toddlers. Along with Liz and the others, he sat on one of the tiered stone benches overlooking the cave entrance. Only Michael was missing; according to Max, he had volunteered to stay behind at the Days Inn to keep watch over Morton's motel room, freeing Max to return to the park to find the rest of his friends and relatives. Liz had originally been startled by Max's newly-blond appearance, but he'd quickly restored his hair to its usual raven-black hue once he realized that the disguise bothered her. Her own tresses, however, remained brilliant red, for safety's sake, as well as for her own peace of mind.

  "Because the Visitors Center is closed, and this is what people do at the Caverns at sunset," Maria said testily; Liz guessed that she wasn't happy about Michael being left behind to baby-sit an armed criminal of uncertain intentions. "You're the one who's always telling us to blend in and not attract attention." She was two seats down from Max, with Liz nestled between them. It was still warm out, but the summer heat was cooling to more bearable levels. "Besides, the bats are cool."I guess," Max sighed, peeking at his watch. Liz knew he was counting the hours and minutes before he could go spy on Morton's midnight rendezvous with the lieutenant. How far is Slaughter Canyon from here, she wondered, and do I really want Max out tailing Morton through the desert? They had already spent several minutes comparing notes after Max got back from his earlier surveillance mission. He had told them about the science guy inexplicably sharing a room with Morton, while Isabel had filled her brother in on what she had learned from Lieutenant Ramirez. Liz wasn't sure what any of this meant, and doubted that any of the others did. All this mystery was the last thing she needed right now, rattled as she still was by her resurrected psychological baggage from the shooting, but she had to admit that the entire situation was looking increasingly suspicious and alarming. A particle physicist with Morton? Conspiring with an air force pilot from White Sands? What could this possibly be about-except maybe more alien-inspired intrigue left over from the Crash? She shivered, hugging herself and wishing that she could just curl up into a fetal ball somewhere far from Roswell, New
Mexico and its secrets. This was supposed to be a vacation from all that, she recalled with bitter irony, but so far it wasn't working out that way "How are you doing, Liz?" Max asked softly, searching her face with those soulful dark eyes. She guessed that someone, maybe Alex or Isabel, had also brought Max up to speed on her precarious emotional state. "I know you've been having a rough time." She detected a trace of guilt in his voice. "I'm sorry I haven't been around more."That's all right," she consoled him. In a crisis, she had learned from painful experience, there often wasn't time for togetherness. "You were doing what you had to do-for my sake." She turned toward him, looking up at the trou- bled face she knew so well. "Morton's my problem, not yours."I just wish I could do more," he said passionately. "The idea that he's still out there, up to no good, after hurting you!" His expression hardened and he clenched his fists, as if newly enraged by the very thought of Morton. A baseball-size chunk of concrete, resting by his foot, abruptly exploded in a shower of dust and gravel. Embarrassed and flustered, he guiltily peeked at the strangers around them; fortunately, no one besides his friends appeared to have noticed the brick's unnatural disintegration. "It just makes me crazy," he offered by way of explanation. "You can't imagine."Out of the comer of her eye, Liz saw Maria observing Max warily, eyeing him as she would a ticking time bomb. Isabel and Alex were discreetly monitoring Max as well. Liz felt her friends' shared discomfort, even as she appreciated their reluctance to intrude on her private moment with Max.

  "I know," she said to him. Watching him simmer in anger and frustration, she wondered who had been most disturbed by Morton's return, she or Max? Once again, she was tormented by the possibility that Max might get hurt trying to avenge her shooting. I'd never forgive myself, she thought, if something happened to him because of me. "You don't have to do this, Max," she urged him. Her moist brown eyes pleaded with his for an end to diis disastrous expedition. "We could just turn around and go home, pretend we never saw him."He shook his head. "It's too late for that, Liz. Things have gone too far. We need to know what Morton is doing with that scientist and the air force guy, for all of our sakes." A rueful smile lifted the corners of his lips. "Anyway, Michael and I have already rented a couple of rooms at the Days Inn for us."The better to keep Joe Morton under twenty-four hour watch, Liz realized. The idea of staying that close to where the murderous gunman was hiding out made her sick to her stomach. I'd rather camp out in the bat cave, with three hundred thousand-plus flying mammals. She knew that Max was probably right; Morton needed watching. She wished she could do more to help Max get to the bottom of the mystery, but, in her present state, she was no good to anyone. When will Ijeel like myself again? she asked hopelessly. How long can constant terror last? Down at the foot of the amphitheater, the loquacious ranger wrapped up his lecture, glancing toward the setting sun and checking his wristwatch. "It should be any time now, folks," he announced, although predicting exactly the bats' big moment was something less than an exact science. "Please remember, no flash photography."An eager hush fell over the gathered tourists, quieting all but the most obstreperous youngsters. Danny Elfman's pounding Batman score echoed beneath the dimming desert sky as several dozen eyes turned toward die cavernous opening at the base of the cliff. "Have you ever seen this before?" Liz asked Max, trying to enjoy the moment as best she could.

  "Once," he admitted, "when we were just kids." A gentler smile temporarily lightened his brooding demeanor. "Isabel was terrified the bats would get caught in her hair."Too bad Michael's missing this," Maria sighed. "Guys like bats and snakes and things, right?"Before either Max or Liz could respond to her query, a loud rustling sound came from the mouth of the cavern, like the fluttery susurrus of millions of shuffling papers. The audience held its breath en masse, leaning forward on their stone benches to get a better look, when suddenly a swirling cloud of black leathery wings burst from the cave, ascending toward the sky like, well, a bat out of hell. Wave after wave of hungry bats, several thousand at a time, poured out of the cavern, spiraling upward like some sort of vampiric tornado before dispersing into the night. Their high-pitched cries bounced off the rocky foundations of the outdoor theater, competing with the shrieks of excited spectators and the thunderous flapping of countless nocturnal predators. "Holy Bat-Surplus!" Alex exclaimed, leaping to his feet while, beside him, Isabel scrunched down as far as she could, protectively placing her hands over her hair. "This is just like Hitchcock's The Birds-but with fewer feathers!"Liz's own reaction caught them all by surprise. Even though she knew what to expect, having witnessed the twilight exodus numerous times as a child, the sudden roar of the bat explosion, the turbulent storm of furry black bodies blotting out the sky, overloaded her senses and sent her heart and soul winging back to the Crashdown and the day she was shot. Help me! she thought frantically, her hysterical screams lost in the tumult. Darkness, black as death, closed in on her. Pain flared below her ribs. Max! Where are you, Max? I'm dying! The blackness was still enveloping her as her friends took hold of her and hastily hustled her away from the bat show.

  9.

  A coyote howled mournfully in the night as Max and Michael crouched behind some outcropping rocks atop a ridge overlooking the hillside entrance to the gruesomely-named Slaughter Canyon Cave. They had arrived at the canyon well before midnight, so that they could take up a concealed position before either Morton or Lieutenant Ramirez showed up to conduct their mysterious business. Although the cave itself had closed at sunset, all-night camping was permitted on the. park's thirty-something miles of back-country trails, allowing the two teenagers to reach this location without having to sneak past any guards or barriers, like they often had to do on covert missions like this. So far, so good, Max thought.

  He hated having to leave Liz's side again, especially after her total meltdown at the Bat Flight, but there was no way around it; he couldn't trust this job to anyone else, not even Michael. If anyone's going to uncover Mortons dirty dealings, it's going to be me, he vowed silently. I owe it to Liz-and myself.

  Fortunately, Liz had calmed down some after they'd gotten her away from the burgeoning bats and crowds. In theory, she was resting now in a room at the Days Inn, where Maria, Alex, and Isabel could take care of her. It had torn his heart out to see Liz so scared and miserable, which only increased his resolve to take care of Joe Morton, one way or another. With luck, Liz would feel better, and more like her old self again, once she knew that the loathsome gunman could no longer threaten her.

  A cold fury possessed him, spreading from his gut out to his fingertips, which tingled with pent-up psychic energy. He clenched his fist, feeling the red-hot power building within him, waiting to burst free. The alien energies at his command were fully capable of killing a man, Max knew, but was he? He tried to imagine what it would be like, setting Morton's heart on fire with the power of his mind, melting the man's rib cage until it resembled one of the shapeless calcite formations found in the caverns below. The image both horrified and intrigued him.

  Could I actually kill Morton in cold blood? he asked himself, uncertain of the answer. A vivid mental picture, of Liz dying on the floor of the Crashdown, blood seeping from her wounded belly, her beautiful brown eyes dimming, sprang into his mind, as real as life. He had never felt so scared, so desperate. Maria screaming in the background. Michael trying to hold him back. Liz's smooth, soft skin growing cold and still… "No, please, no! You can't die, Liz. You can't!"Max shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the awful memories from his thoughts. He shuddered, his body responding irrationally to events that had taken place nearly two years ago. The remote canyon, lit by a thin crescent moon, could not have been more different than the Crashdown with its kitschy decor, yet he suddenly felt as though part of him, the most important part, was still kneeling on the diner floor, next to Liz's bleeding body How could anyone do this to her, to Liz of all people? One very special person like Liz, so beautiful, so bright, and so caring, was worth more than a hundred worthless scumbags like Joe Morton. H
ow dare he come so close to extinguishing Lizs life forever? Max's alien blood boiled in his veins and he knew that, at that moment at least, he was more than capable of obliterating Joe Morton for good.

  "You okay, kemo sdbe?" Michael asked. Like his friend, the alien youth squatted in the dirt behind the craggy ridge, and had discarded his blond disguise in favor of his usual mop of messy brown hair. High-powered binoculars, purchased at one of the shops in Whites City, rested on his lap, next to a medium-size bottle of Tabasco sauce.

  "I'm fine," Max asserted. "I just want to get this over with, and get back to Liz." He peeked at the Indiglo display on his watch; it was already 11:35 p.m. "Not much longer," he promised Michael.

  "So why do you think this place is called Slaughter Canyon anyway?" Michael asked casually. He took a sip of the bright red Tabasco sauce. "Are we talking some sort of ghastly Indian massacre here or what?"I have no idea," Max stated, grimacing slightly. His legs were growing numb from holding the same position, so he shifted his weight slightly. "And I don't particularly care." He glanced over at his friend to see how he was holding up.

  What he saw sent a chill through his blood. "Michael!" he whispered urgently. "Don't move!" Max froze as well, taking care not to make any sudden movements. "Whatever you do, don't move."There in the moonlight, coiled in the shadow of a flowering cactus plant, its burnished copper scales glittering, a full-grown rattlesnake lifted its serpentine head, only inches away from Michael's ankle. Diamond-shaped markings along its coils advertised its deadly nature and species, while a forked tongue flicked between its predatory jaws.

  At first, Michael looked mystified by Max's whispered warning. "What?" he mouthed silently, taking pains to obey Max's instructions even though he didn't yet comprehend die why of them. Then the rattler shook its tail like a maraca, filling the still night air with a dry, staccato warning. Understanding-and fear-dawned in Michael's eyes. "Oh crap," he whispered.