Case File 13 #2

by J. Scott Savage

  Nick couldn’t help grinning. It was either the stupidest idea ever or pure genius.

  “Mommy, Mommy, look. A clown!” Half a dozen little kids stood around Jake, staring in delight at the giant in the bright red nose as the train raced toward Diablo Valley.

  “Does he juggle?” a five-year-old girl asked.

  “Does he breathe fire?”

  A little boy held out his hand and said, “Give me five, Mr. Clown.”

  Nick leaned forward, afraid Jake would slap the kid’s hand right off. But the giant brushed his fingers gently across the boy’s palm and slapped each of the other kids five before Tiffany said, “Time to give Mr. Clown a rest. He’s tired from doing lots of shows.”

  Nick glanced at Carter, who was slouched in his seat listening to his MP3 player, and tugged on his coat sleeve. “What’s with the music?”

  Carter pulled out an earbud. “It calms me down. If it wasn’t for the music, I think I’d be totally freaking out right now.”

  Nick knew the feeling. He leaned over to Angelo, who was still adjusting his polarity-reversing overload generator. “You think that thing will really work?”

  Angelo wet his lips. “I’d give it about a seventy-seven percent probability of success.”

  Nick didn’t like the sound of that. They could get all the way to their goal and still have a twenty-three percent chance of failure. Sooner than he would have liked, the train shuddered to a stop at their station. Angie was the first one off. At least he had to give her credit for being brave.

  Outside, the rain had changed to fat white flakes that drifted down so thick it was hard to see more than ten feet in any direction. The few other people at the station stuck out their tongues and hands, laughing as they tried to catch flakes.

  Jake looked up at the swirling crystals, eyes wide with wonder. “Rainsies are to being coldsies. Pret-ty.”

  “Yes, the snow is pretty,” said Tiffany, tugging him by the arm and leading him down the platform steps.

  Angie examined her maps, which she’d had the foresight to cover with plastic sleeves. “The tunnel entrance should be about halfway up the hill on the west side of the road—if it’s still there. If it’s not, this plan could come to a quick end.”

  “What’d she say?” Carter asked, removing an earbud.

  Nick could hear a faint tune that sounded vaguely familiar. “She said, ‘Turn off your music and pay attention.’ ”

  Carter grimaced but turned off his player.

  Once they were away from the station, they could see no one else but themselves. No people, no cars. It was like they were exploring a frigid wilderness. Angie took turns checking the GPS on Tiffany’s phone and comparing it to her map.

  “There,” Angelo said, pointing to a concrete bunker built into the side of the hill. With the falling snow, the light-colored concrete was easy to miss. Nick was impressed Angelo had spotted it at all.

  They were about to cross the road when Nick saw movement from the corner of his eye. “Wait. Stop,” he hissed.

  Angie glanced back at him over her shoulder. “What is it?”

  “Not sure,” Nick said. Then he saw it again. This time he knew exactly what it was and his heart pounded against his ribs. “Get down. Get down,” he whispered.

  The six of them dropped to the snow-covered asphalt. Jake saw what they were doing and fell down too, grinning like it was a game. A moment later, two hulking shapes appeared, walking side by side.

  “The football players,” Carter whispered, his voice shaking. “What are they doing out here?”

  “Nothing good,” Nick said.

  Jake saw his fellow students and pointed—a big grin spreading across his face. He started to call out to them, but Tiffany slapped a hand over his mouth and put a finger to her lips. “Shhh. Hidesies.”

  The giant’s eyes glowed. Tiffany was speaking his language. “Hidesies,” he whispered back, putting a finger to his own lips.

  As soon as the football players disappeared from view, Angie got up. “Okay, let’s cross.”

  “Hang on,” Nick said. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a feeling they should wait.

  Angie gave him an irritated glare, but she dropped back to the ground. Less than five minutes later, two more Sumina Prep players marched into view. One of them walked to the concrete bunker and tested the metal door before moving on.

  “Patrols,” Dana growled. “Dippel’s expecting us.”

  Angelo chewed at the tip of his thumbnail. “Either that or he’s just increased security in general.”

  “Let’s time them and see how often they come by,” Angie said.

  They crept back to the minimal cover of dead grass on the other side of the road and watched for the next twenty minutes. “Four and half minutes, almost like clockwork,” Angie said when the pair had passed for the fifth time.

  Nick’s nose felt like an icicle and his legs were going numb. He rubbed his gloved hands across his face, trying to warm up his cheeks. “If we’re going to do something, we better do it soon. I’m freezing.”

  Angie checked with Dana. “What do you think?”

  Dana reached into her bag and pulled out a smoke grenade and two fishing poles. She handed one of the poles to Angie and kept the other. Nick gritted his teeth. Didn’t she think he could handle a weapon?

  Dana handed him the grenade. “At four minutes, pull the grenade and throw it in the middle of the road. If we’re lucky, Dippel’s minions will think it’s part of the storm. We’ll run to the door, and when we signal, get across the road fast. We’re only going to have a few minutes to get the door open and get inside the tunnel.”

  Angie checked her watch, counting down when it had nearly been four minutes. “Three, two, one, now.”

  Nick pulled the metal tab on the can. There was a small click. “Count to three and throw it,” Dana reminded.

  “I know,” Nick snapped. He rolled the can underhanded onto the road so it made as little noise as possible. The grenade came to a stop almost exactly in the center. A second later, there was a thump and an impressive cloud of white smoke filled the air.

  “Let’s go,” Dana said. Together, she and Angie disappeared into the smoke.

  “What do we do if they don’t signal?” Carter asked, squeezing his MP3 player to his chest.

  “Leave Tiffany here with Jake and run,” Nick joked.

  Tiffany scowled.

  Just when Nick was beginning to wonder if Dana’s plan had gone wrong, two blue flashes of light illuminated the smoke cloud, one right on top of the other, followed by a pair of thumps.

  A soft whistle sounded. Tweet-tweet. Tweet-tweet.

  “Let’s go,” Nick said. The five of them jumped to their feet and ran across the road.

  “Hidesies,” Jake whispered gleefully.

  On the other side of the road, Angie and Dana were untangling their fishing hooks from a pair of unconscious bodies nearly as big as Jake. They were both wearing the Sumina Prep sweatshirts and sweatpants Jake had arrived in.

  Jake leaned across his fellow students and shook them gently, eyes worried. “Sleepsies?”

  “Let’s let them sleep,” Tiffany said.

  “What happens when they recover?” Carter asked.

  Dana’s lips pulled up in a worried half smile. “If we’re lucky, they won’t know what hit them. If we aren’t . . . then we better hope the tunnel leads to the school.”

  Nick ran to the metal door and tried to turn the knob. His heart sank. “It’s locked,” he said. Of course it was locked. Who would leave an access tunnel open for anyone to explore? Why hadn’t they considered that?

  “Maybe Jake can knock it down?” Tiffany said.

  Angie shook her head. “That metal looks thick. And besides, even if he could, the sound would carry all the way to the school.”

  “Let me have a look,” Carter said. He walked up to the door and leaned over to study the lock. A moment later he reached into his jacket and pulled out his pocketknif
e, tweezers, and a paper clip. He slipped the knife into the crack between the door and jamb, bent the paper clip, and poked it into the lock.

  “If this is anything like your weapons,” Angie said, “we really don’t have—”

  Carter grabbed the paper clip with the tweezers, pulled, and there was an audible click. A moment later the door swung open.

  “Dude,” Nick said. “How’d you learn to do that?”

  “Cub Scouts,” Carter said, putting his tools back in his coat. “Our den leader was a locksmith.”

  “And he taught you to pick locks?” Tiffany asked.

  Carter grinned. “It beat building birdhouses.”

  As they stepped through the door, a set of motion-activated lights turned on, illuminating the dusty tunnel.

  As Carter helped Jake out of his costume, Nick thought things might not be so bad after all. But they’d barely gone a hundred feet into the tunnel when a deafening scream filled the concrete passage. Nick slapped his hands to his ears, but it didn’t help at all. The noise was like a high-pitched drill cutting directly into his head.

  “What is it?” he shouted, barely able to hear his voice over the wailing. It was like the noise wasn’t even coming through his ears at all, but being broadcast directly into his head.

  Angie searched the tunnel, her teeth clenched in pain, before pointing to something on the ceiling. “There.” Her mouth moved, but Nick could only make out what she was saying by reading her lips.

  Nick looked up and saw a jar just like the one that had been at the front of the first classroom in the school. Floating in the middle of it was a quivering human brain. He didn’t know how, but he was almost positive the sound was coming from the jar. It hurt so bad, his eyes were watering. If it didn’t stop soon, he was sure his head was going to split.

  Dana pulled a baseball bat out of her bag.

  “Shock it!” Nick screamed.

  Angie shook her head and pointed to the bottle. Of course. Nick had forgotten that glass wasn’t a conductor of electricity. Instead, Dana pulled back the bat. Before she could swing it, Jake caught her arm. Nick couldn’t tell what the giant was shouting, but it was clear he didn’t want Dana to smash the brain.

  Was it because it was alive somehow? Is that what Jake was saying? Was the brain his friend too? Nick squeezed his hands against his ears. He couldn’t take it much longer. “Do something!” he screamed.

  Suddenly Tiffany reached into Carter’s jacket and pulled out his MP3 player. She jumped toward Jake, who swooped down to catch her in his arms. “Up,” she yelled, pointing toward the jar. Jake lifted her until her face was almost level with the brain. Tiffany pushed a button on the music player, and pressed the earbuds against the jar.

  A moment later the screaming cut off as abruptly as it had started. To Nick it felt like someone had just pulled an icepick out of his forehead. He gave a sigh of relief, his head still ringing.

  “Good call,” Angelo said. “How did you know that music would quiet it?”

  Tiffany shrugged. “It calmed Carter down, and his brain isn’t nearly this big.”

  “Very funny,” Carter said. But even he seemed too relieved to stay mad for long.

  Still pressing the headphones to the glass, Tiffany said, “Unless you want me to stay up here all night, I need something to attach these to the jar.”

  Dana reached into her bag and peeled some of the tape from one of her grenades. Struggling to keep the earbuds against the glass, Tiffany taped each of them to the jar, then taped the MP3 player itself so the whole thing stayed put.

  “I bought that with my own money,” Carter grumbled, staring up at his player.

  “I’ll get you another one if we make it out of this alive,” Angelo said.

  “You think there are any more of them?” Angie asked, searching the ceiling as they walked deeper into the tunnel.

  “I hope not,” Nick said. “That was our only set of tunes.”

  Dana put her bat back in her bag. “Do you think it was some kind of alarm?”

  “Maybe,” Angelo said. “Or it could just be a deterrent to keep people out.”

  “It definitely deterred me,” Carter said.

  Nick eased up next to Carter. “What was that song? It sounded sort of like Justin Bieber.”

  “Totally not,” Carter said, his face going red.

  Angelo snickered.

  Ten minutes later they came around a corner and everyone stopped. A smooth concrete wall that looked much newer than the rest of the tunnel stretched from one side to the other.

  Angie put her fingers against the wall, then slammed it with the palm of her hand before dropping to the floor. “It’s a dead end!”

  Nick sat next to Angie. “Maybe we can try the front door. Or find a way through the fence.”

  Angie shook her head, her hands in her lap. “No. By now they know someone attacked their patrol. We’d never make it within a hundred yards of the school. We’ll be lucky if we can get back out.”

  “We tried,” Dana said. “That should count for something.”

  Angie slammed her fist to the dusty floor. “Trying doesn’t save Cody. Or the next kid Dippel grabs.”

  Nick knew exactly how she felt. Failure was failure and this one tasted terrible. Angelo sniffed and glanced at Carter. “Do you smell something bad?”

  “Don’t look at me,” Carter said. “I haven’t farted since we were on the train.”

  “Gross,” Tiffany said. “I was sitting beside you.”

  Dana scrunched up her nose. “I do smell something.”

  Still covering his face with one hand, Jake pointed toward Carter. All eyes turned in his direction.

  “Whaaat?” Carter said. “I swear it wasn’t me.”

  Nick got up. “Move out of the way.” He brushed cobwebs away from the wall where Carter had been standing. The concrete was old and crumbling, with a thin slime of green mold growing out of the cracks. “Give me your pocketknife,” he said.

  Carter handed Nick his knife. Nick opened the largest blade and began digging at the wall. The concrete flaked away easily, breaking off in bigger and bigger chunks the more he dug.

  “I think there’s something back there,” Angelo said. Together, he and Nick dug away the last of the concrete, revealing a round metal plate.

  “What is it?” Dana asked, joining them.

  Angie came over. “See if you can pry it off.”

  The plate was covered with the same green mold as the wall, and the foul smell was even stronger. Nick slid the knife blade into the edge of the plate, working it back and forth.

  “It’s moving,” Dana said.

  Nick got his fingers onto the edge of the plate and pulled.

  “Look out,” Angelo cried.

  The three of them jumped backward as the plate tilted out and then slammed to the ground, ringing like an old church bell. A horrible stench flowed out from the hole and they all covered their faces.

  “Disgusting,” Tiffany said.

  Carter plugged his nose. “It smells worse than my little brother, and he never takes a bath,” he said in a nasal voice.

  Only Angie seemed unaffected by the stench. “Look at the water.”

  Nick glanced into the pipe. At the bottom a stream of goopy green liquid flowed slowly by. “So?”

  “So this is how we get into the school.” She grabbed a flashlight from her pack and shined it into the hole.

  “You want to go in there?” Nick asked, his stomach rolling over. “I want to help Cody. But how do we know this pipe even connects to the school?”

  “That stink is the same thing I smelled in the school lab,” Angie said. “That green stuff has to be some kind of chemical Dippel is leaking into the drains.”

  Angelo angled his light into the pipe. “She might be right.”

  Nick edged up beside him. The stink wasn’t quite as rank as when they opened the cover, but it was still bad. The pipe was big enough that he could probably walk if he bent a littl
e, but just the idea of going inside freaked him out. He looked at the nearly fluorescent stream of slow-moving water. “Do you think that stuff is dangerous?”

  “My guess is that these are old storm drains,” Angelo said. “Whatever he’s dumping in there is probably diluted by rainwater. I couldn’t tell for sure without a microscope.”

  Carter continued to hold his nose. “I don’t care if it’s dangerous or not. I’m not going in there. It’s dark. It stinks. And who knows what kind of stuff might be crawling around?”

  “Would you rather go back?” Angie snarled, whirling to face the rest of them. “Are you going to give up because of a little stink?”

  Angelo ran his hands through his hair.

  Carter scuffed his shoes on the floor.

  “I’ll go,” Nick said, although he was pretty sure he’d hurl as soon as he got in the hole.

  Dana pressed her lips together before nodding. “I will too.”

  “Okay.” Angelo sighed, his face looking green.

  Carter and Tiffany looked at each other before both saying, “Fine,” at almost the exact same time, as though neither wanted the other to say it first.

  The only one who hadn’t agreed was Jake. He was backed as far away from the hole as he could get, shaking his head with a look of disgust. Both of his hands were plastered over his nose.

  “It’s his superior sense of smell,” Angelo said. “If it stinks that bad to us, it must be unbearable for him.”

  “I guess we could go without him,” Dana said.

  “No leavsies,” the giant cried, swaying back and forth. “No leavsies.”

  “I think he’s afraid to be by himself,” Carter said. He stood on his tiptoes to pat Jake’s back.

  “I don’t know what choice we have,” Angie said. “The smell will kill him, and he’s so big he’d have to crawl through the pipe.”

  Nick couldn’t imagine being on his hands and knees in the filth.