“Yes,” Rosie said, nodding and then readjusting her goggles when they slid a bit. “Tom goes first, and you video him pretending to be brave.”
Charlotte saw Tom open his mouth to protest so she spoke up quickly. “Right, and make sure not to get too close to Tom so it looks like he’s alone here.”
“Roger that,” Rosie said.
They stowed their bikes behind a bush and Rosie led the way to the porch.
Charlotte filmed Tom walking up the steps and trying the front door. He pulled hard, but it didn’t give. Locked, not a surprise. Tom peered in the side window. Charlotte zoomed in over his shoulder, excited to see what alarming things might be inside, but the entryway was just dark and empty.
“Can we break in now?” Rosie asked.
“Um, let’s look in the windows first,” Charlotte said, clicking off the video. It would be better to see what was inside before bursting in, especially if they didn’t want Tom screeching.
“Boring,” Rosie complained, tugging to see if the window was unlocked.
Tom cleared his throat. “Remember, Mom says you never go into an enemy building blind. You have to scope out what’s inside first, to avoid a surprise ambush.”
“Right,” Rosie said, letting go of the windowsill and nodding vigorously. “Can I be first to scope it out or does Tom go first?”
“You go,” Charlotte and Tom said, nearly in unison. Obviously having fearless Rosie check things out first made sense. Charlotte decided that they’d do the video of Tom when they knew what the situation was inside, instead of filming him getting spooked by something unexpected.
Rosie ran over to the bay window at the front of the house and pressed her face, goggles and all, against the glass. “It’s just desks and chairs,” she announced.
Charlotte approached and looked closely, but all she saw was a room full of dusty old office furniture. No sign of ghosts anywhere. Though in all fairness, Charlotte wasn’t sure what kind of signs ghosts left.
The Baileys walked carefully around the house, looking in all the windows on the first floor. Charlotte noticed Rosie tugging surreptitiously on them, but they were either locked or wedged shut from lack of use. The rooms, bathed in shadow, were mostly empty save for furniture and a few cobwebs.
“If there are ghosts or zombies, they’re probably in the attic,” Tom said.
“That’s true,” Charlotte said, tilting her head to peer up. “I wish we could look in the windows of the second floor.”
“Maybe we could get Dad’s ladder,” Rosie suggested, her eyes lighting up.
“That wouldn’t exactly be subtle,” Charlotte pointed out.
Rosie’s mouth pinched up.
“Remember, we want to be stealth ninjas,” Tom told her.
“Does that mean it’s time to break in very quietly?” Rosie asked.
Charlotte couldn’t help laughing at that, though Rosie did have a point. “Yeah, I think it is,” she said. Going in blind would not be ideal, of course, but so far all they had was a video of Tom walking onto a porch, and that was hardly going to help them. They needed to get inside and start exploring.
Rosie clapped in glee, but Tom held up a hand. “We still haven’t looked in the basement,” he pointed out. “We should do that first.”
Just then a crow flew overhead, its black feathers rustling as it swooped low and let out a mournful caw before landing on a low branch on the tree above them. Charlotte drew in a breath—there was something decidedly unsettling about the way it was staring down at them. Tom was standing very still beside her, clearly spooked, his gaze focused on the large bird.
But Rosie, who hadn’t seemed to even notice the crow, bounced over to the basement window next to the front porch. Charlotte grabbed Tom’s arm to follow. They had to scramble through a big, leafy bush, ducking to avoid getting hit in the face by the branches, in order to get to the small window. The dirt was moist under Charlotte’s knees as she crouched down and peered in. And then she gasped.
“Are those … cages?” Tom whispered incredulously beside her.
“I think so,” Charlotte whispered, shifting so she could get a better look. They were cages, four of them in a row, all about the size of a refrigerator. Leather straps hung from a hook on the wall behind them.
“And look there, on the table,” Rosie said, her voice hushed for the first time.
On the white table near the cages was a tray of sharp, glistening syringes, a carton of locks, a case of sinister-looking hooked and jagged metal tools, and a pile of very strange plastic packages.
“Is that … ?” Charlotte asked, pressing her nose against the window as she tried to make it out more clearly.
“I think it’s flesh,” Tom said quietly.
Charlotte’s hands were shaking, but she managed to press record on her phone and held it to the window.
“Do ghosts eat meat?” Rosie whispered. “Or zombies?”
“I don’t—” Charlotte began but stopped short as she was interrupted by a sound from inside the basement, low and guttural.
Tom let out the screech of doom, Rosie shouted, and Charlotte leaped up so fast she nearly fell over backward into the bush.
The sound came again, this time more of a growl, deep and threatening.
“What was that?” Rosie asked in a breathless voice.
“Who cares?” Tom said, his face pale. “Let’s get out of here.”
Charlotte had to admit she agreed, but they couldn’t flee, not when they had zero good video footage. “Just do something first,” she hissed, holding up the phone to capture Tom. “Pose like you’re about to open the window. And look brave.”
Unfortunately Tom looked completely terrified, kind of how Charlotte was feeling. She was about to tell him to fake it so they could leave this creepy place once and for all, but then they heard another sound, this one behind them. It was footsteps coming up the path, though their view of whatever was walking toward them was blocked by the bush.
Charlotte felt Tom’s fingers digging into her arm and even Rosie was silent, not that Charlotte could hear much of anything besides the footfalls coming closer and the pounding of her heart.
The steps came to a halt right at the bush. Charlotte held her breath and closed her eyes, waiting for hands or claws or something even worse to reach into the shrub and grab them. But then she heard a gravelly voice begin to speak.
“Yeah, I’m at the site,” a man said, then paused for a moment. “No, no one followed me. I was careful, just like we discussed.”
Charlotte leaned forward as silently as she could, giving Tom a quick look when he tried to stop her. She held her breath again, so as not to make even a single leaf on the bush flutter, and looked out. There on the path stood a man talking on a cell phone. He appeared completely unaware of the three Baileys hidden behind the bush.
“Yes, he’s locked up in there now,” the man went on. “I’ll just make sure everything’s secure before I leave and then come back tomorrow to finish up.”
With that he stuffed the phone back in his pocket and headed to the front door. He pulled out a set of keys and, after several false tries, managed to let himself inside and closed the door firmly behind him.
Rosie turned to her siblings. “I don’t think that man is military,” she whispered.
Charlotte had noticed that too. The man was wearing jeans and an odd brown jacket that seemed to be padded. His shoulders sloped, his hair was shaggy, and Charlotte was fairly certain she’d seen stubble along his jawline. Military men and women walked tall, wore uniforms on duty, had neat haircuts, and were never, ever unshaven. So clearly this man was not a soldier. “You’re right,” she said.
“Never mind that,” Tom whispered tensely. “The real question is how are we getting out of here?”
“We can’t go now; it’s time to be spies,” Rosie cried just a little bit too loudly. “He unlocked the door—maybe we can sneak in behind him!”
“Is someone out there?” the man called from inside
the house.
Tom was up and running, pulling Rosie with him, Charlotte right behind. They raced to their bikes and climbed on, just as they heard the front door open.
“Who’s out here?” the man yelled.
But the Baileys were gone, leaving only a trail of dust in their wake as they flew back up the alley, along Crimson Drive, and down Gettysburg Drive, not stopping to breathe until they’d reached the safety of their house on Bingham Road.
“So, did we get any video?” Tom asked Charlotte. He was feeling a little shaky from the scare. The Baileys had biked home in record time and headed straight to Charlotte and Rosie’s room to debrief, Cupcake right behind them. Charlotte and Rosie sat on the floor near the dollhouse while Tom leaned against Charlotte’s bed, Cupcake cuddled next to him, as he tried to catch his breath.
“Let’s see,” Charlotte said, tapping her camera app and holding up the screen. The first shot was Tom trying to open the front door and was nothing impressive. The next video was black.
“What’s that supposed to be?” Rosie asked. She had shed her goggles when they returned home from the house, but they’d left red rings pressed into the skin around her eyes.
“I was trying to film all that creepy stuff in the basement,” Charlotte said. “But I guess it was too dark for the phone.”
That was too bad. Tom was sure the basement stuffed with ghoulish things would make a good start to a video.
Charlotte clicked on the last film clip. The shaking frame showed Tom’s terrified face and then his mouth opening in a screech of doom. Tom’s shoulders slumped. This was the opposite of what they wanted—in fact, if this video got out, he’d be Sergeant Wimpy for life.
“That was a real soup sundae,” Rosie said, the corners of her mouth pulling down.
Tom decided not to remind her that the lingo was actually soup sandwich. Both conveyed the same meaning anyway: a big mess.
“Not really,” Charlotte said. She had finished deleting the terrible clips and was starting to bounce a little, the way she did when she was excited about something. “I mean, the video was a disaster but there’s obviously something going on at that house, and we’re the only ones who know about it. So that’s actually a pretty major discovery!”
Tom rubbed Cupcake’s ears as he considered Charlotte’s words. The video had been a fiasco, but all the evil-looking equipment and that sinister man added up to—well, Tom wasn’t sure, but clearly it was something pretty shady. And if what Tash had said about everyone avoiding the building was true, then the Baileys really were the only ones who knew about it. “Yeah, it was really suspicious,” he agreed.
Rosie, who had been sagged on the floor next to Charlotte, now sat up a little straighter.
“Especially that guy’s conversation,” Charlotte said. “All that stuff about no one finding out what he was doing there.”
“And how someone is locked up inside,” Tom said, frowning as he remembered the ominous statement. “Oh, man.”
“Exactly,” Charlotte said. “Something bad is going on in that house, and since that guy wasn’t even military, I’m not sure the army knows about it.”
“Should we tell them?” Rosie asked.
Tom had been thinking the same thing, but Charlotte shook her head. “No, not till we have real evidence.”
“Like the video?” Rosie asked.
“Yeah,” Charlotte said, twisting one of her braids thoughtfully. “I mean, this is bigger than us just making a video to prove Chase wrong. We need to figure out what this guy is up to before something awful happens. But if we can make a video of it, exposing the truth but also showing Tom being brave, then we handle two problems at once.”
That sounded like a great plan to Tom. “So what do we think is going on in that house?” he asked, rubbing his hands together. Back when they’d been convinced that their neighbor in Pennsylvania, Mrs. Watkins, was up to something, this had been one of the most fun parts: the brainstorming segment of the mission. Of course, Mrs. Watkins hadn’t turned out to be an assassin, but it was obvious something sinister was going on in the building on post, and Tom was ready to speculate on just what it might be.
There was silence as each Bailey considered the question.
“You know, it’s possible that guy is doing something illegal,” Tom said after a minute. “But it’s also possible he’s in charge of a top secret mission and looking like a civilian is his cover.”
Charlotte pursed her lips, then nodded. “Yeah, that’s a good point,” she said. “That might actually make more sense because otherwise how could he get on post? The security is really tight.”
“What if bad guys snuck him in?” Rosie asked. “Or he paid a bribe?”
That was a good point too.
“Okay, that’s true,” Tom said. “But if he is doing an undercover mission, I think he’s in charge of setting up some kind of jail for really dangerous spies. Those sounds we heard could have been some of the prisoners.”
“Maybe he’s creating a zombie army,” Rosie suggested, coming to sit down on Cupcake’s other side so she could snuggle with the big dog too. “Zombies moan, right?”
“Yeah,” Charlotte said. “But remember how Tash said the building was haunted by the ghosts of GIs from a failed experiment?”
A shiver snaked across Tom’s skin as he nodded.
“That makes me think the building is a medical testing site, and they’re starting those experiments again,” Charlotte said. Her eyes lit up as she explained her theory. “Like all those syringes and weird metal tools could be used for operating and injecting serums or whatever they need to create a super-soldier.”
Tom drew in a breath. “That totally fits,” he said, feeling very impressed by his sister’s powers of deduction. Charlotte really would make a good spy.
Charlotte’s cheeks turned pink, the way they always did when something pleased her. “Thanks, but we shouldn’t rule out any of the other theories yet.”
“That means we can’t rule out zombies either,” Rosie pointed out.
“Right, we can’t rule out zombies yet either,” Charlotte said seriously.
“So we need to go break in and find out which one it is,” Rosie announced, standing up ready to go.
“We don’t have time now,” Charlotte said with a sigh. “Dad’s going to be home soon and he needs us to help get dinner ready.”
“Okay, well, then we should go tomorrow,” Rosie said, sitting back down a bit deflated.
“That guy said he would be at the building tomorrow, though,” Tom pointed out. “I don’t think we can break in while he’s there.”
“That’s because you’re a scaredy-cat,” Rosie said, and Tom glared at her.
“No, Tom’s right,” Charlotte said, coming to his rescue. “It’s going to be hard enough to sneak in when the place is empty—we don’t want to worry about making noise and having him discover us.”
Tom tried not to shudder at the thought—he didn’t need anyone calling him a scaredy-cat again.
But Rosie was nodding. “Yeah, if we have to throw a rock through the window it’ll be really loud,” she said.
Charlotte laughed. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” she said.
Tom heartily agreed with that—destroying army property seemed like an especially bad idea.
“Can we go on Monday after school?” Rosie asked.
Tom shook his head. “I wish we could but I get out late because of detention and then there’s homework.”
Rosie scowled.
“We’ll just have to wait and try to get inside the house next weekend,” Charlotte said, sounding deflated.
Cupcake jumped up suddenly, nearly causing Tom to shriek, and ran toward the stairs. A moment later the front door opened.
“Hey, everybody,” Dad called, and Tom heard Cupcake greeting him. Cupcake was a good spy too, the way she heard someone coming before human ears could pick up the sound.
“Hi, Dad,” Rosie called. “Guess
what we—”
Charlotte waved her hands in panic and Rosie snapped her mouth shut, then covered it, her eyes wide. But luckily Dad seemed to have gotten distracted by Cupcake, who was frisking and jumping about, her way of asking to be fed.
“We need to keep our mission a secret,” Tom reminded Rosie in a whisper. “We’ll tell Mom and Dad once we find out what’s going on.”
“Otherwise they’ll just tell us to stay away and not to ask questions,” Charlotte said softly.
Rosie nodded. “Okay, sorry,” she said.
“Who wants to eat dinner at the Officers’ Club?” Dad said, poking his head into the room a moment later.
“Me!” Rosie shouted.
“That sounds great,” Charlotte agreed.
“Yeah, I’m starving,” Tom said, suddenly aware of how empty his belly felt. “And it will be cool to see the Officers’ Club.” Although they hadn’t lived on post before, they had heard about Officers’ Clubs, so Tom knew the food would be tasty and the place would be fancy.
“Great,” Dad said, then clapped his hands together. “Let’s put on some finery and head over to the club. Mom had to stop in at her office, so she’ll meet us there.”
Thoughts of dinner replaced thoughts of the mysterious activity in the building as Tom went to his room where he put on a button-down shirt and clean khaki pants. Then he went downstairs where Dad was wearing his own button-down, a tie, and khakis, Charlotte was wearing a blue dress, and Rosie had put on a pink skirt and matching pink blouse.
“We’re looking good, if I do say so myself,” Dad said, running a hand over his head. He’d gotten a crew cut in honor of their arrival on post, but still had the habit of reaching up to smooth his hair back.
“Let’s pop fire,” Rosie said happily.
Tom couldn’t help laughing at that. “It’s pop smoke,” he corrected.
“That doesn’t make sense,” Rosie said as they walked outside into the balmy warmth of the late afternoon. “How is popping smoke like leaving?”
Tom actually thought this was a good point—“pop smoke” was one of those military terms that had never made much sense to him. “You got me,” he said.
Army Brats Page 9
