by Joanne Pence
He didn’t know that for the past few hours, once again, his every step had been watched and recorded.
Chapter 22
EARLIER THAT DAY, Hammill had stopped his ATV at the top of the mountain ridge and looked at the horses Charlotte Reed and her fellow search team had used, but now had abandoned. “Damn it all!”
It had taken longer than he expected to find three double-seat ATVs in the Salmon area, and then they had to rent U-Hauls to get them out to Polly Higgins’ ranch. Once there, it was child’s play to follow the tracks of four horses into the wilderness, and they quickly closed the distance between them.
But just as the horses could not descend the steep mountain, neither could ATVs. They got off and ran, slipped and slid down the mountain. The pillars surprised them, but they believed the pillars meant they were near the end of the mission, that they would soon find the university group. Exhilarated, they jogged toward the pillars, but stopped when Charlotte Reed and the others came into view.
Hammill and his men dropped to the ground and watched.
Lightning flickered, then a strange rumbling thunder echoed through the valley although the sky remained clear. The men grew nervous, but Hammill kept focused as the searchers began to climb the mound. From what he could see through the binoculars, nothing was up there. He picked up his sat phone to give an update on his success at finding the pillars.
He watched the searchers at the top as they stopped and talked, then saw a strange pirouette by Charlotte Reed and one of the men. His sat phone wasn’t working, which made no sense. He smacked it against his palm then tried again.
“Aw, fuck!” Crawford, aka Crawfish, then simply Fish muttered.
The Hammer looked up just in time to watch as one by one, the searchers walked between the pillars. And disappeared.
He nearly dropped the expensive communications equipment. “Holy shit!”
Chapter 23
NOTHING HAD CHANGED, and yet everything had. The first thing Michael noticed was that the tracks that had been going up the mound, were now going down it. They were on the other side; they had crossed over, but to what, he didn’t know. Quade’s mouth uplifted in a tiny smile while Charlotte and Jake stood still. They spoke not a word; their eyes said it all.
Michael turned slowly. The distant trees looked the same as those before, and the mountain ranges hadn’t changed. Yet, the very air felt different, heavy, almost sandy.
Jake broke the silence. “It can’t be,” he said, looking down at the footprints. “I don’t get it.”
Even the phlegmatic Quade was excited. “It is said that the first and greatest alchemist, Hermes Trismegistus, used his alchemical powers to create a portal between worlds—in alchemical terms, to create a transformation.”
“That’s crazy,” Jake said, incredulous that they would be discussing such a thing.
“Is it?” Quade asked. “Look around you. Open your eyes.”
“Quade is right,” Michael said. “The pillars are simply a visible part of the phenomenon. Their rumbling, thunderous sound is a warning you're approaching an altered reality.”
“It makes no sense,” Jake insisted. “And it’s wrong. Horribly wrong.”
“I’m going to try to go back,” Charlotte announced as she walked through the pillars. Nothing happened. She remained in full view of the others. She then entered the pillars through the opposite direction with the same results. She went through forwards, backwards, around the pillars and then through. She even walked backwards between them. Nothing worked. “It’s all right,” she said, trying to project strength. “When we need to, we’ll figure out a way.”
Jake nodded at her, wanting to encourage her strength even as the full impact of all this built within him. “We knew we were going to have to find our own way back, and we will. But first we follow those tracks going down the mound. The students are here, alive, and we’re going to find them.”
Quade, Charlotte and Jake climbed down. Something held Michael back. He took the red stone from his pocket. The color radiated even more vibrantly than before. “Lady Hsieh,” he said softly, “are you here somewhere? Will I see you again?”
A flock of crows circled the pillars. Caws, too loud, created a wall of noise. Then, a shadow. He put the stone back in his pocket and slid down the mound to the others. “Something’s near, watching us. We’ve got to be careful.”
A low growl sounded. They froze.
“What was that?” Charlotte asked.
“I don’t know,” Jake said, drawing his Smith and Wesson 327, with a five-inch barrel, eight round, .357 magnum. He was more comfortable with it than the Remington strapped on his shoulder.
Michael and Charlotte chambered their rifles.
“The beasts here could be different from those now in Idaho,” Quade said. Even he sounded tense now. “We don’t know what era this ‘world’ is from, how long it’s been here, how the beasts evolved.”
The creature shrieked now, louder, and a heavy musty odor wafted near.
“I think,” Charlotte said, her voice small, “it’s coming closer.”
They backed away from the sound, then turned and quickly put some distance between themselves and whatever hid out there. They walked on a slight upward grade when Jake cried out. Horror on his face, he slowly moved toward some bushes.
One Adidas sneaker with the foot still in it lay before him, along with tufts of curly red hair. More gnawed and scattered remains were near.
Jake found torn clothing and an I.D. to confirm what he knew as soon as he saw the hair color.
They dug a shallow grave and buried as much of Ted Bellows as they could find.
Chapter 24
Washington D.C.
JIANJUN SAT IN STARBUCKS, a grande mocha latte and cranberry-orange scone in front of him as he tried once more to reach Michael by phone and text. He kept getting “out of range” messages. That was the first time it had happened with a satellite phone, but he knew it was theoretically possible. He tried not to worry, telling himself that Michael was simply in a canyon where the satellite waves couldn’t reach.
Jianjun would try again soon, but in the meantime he did further investigation of Phaylor Laine Pharmaceuticals, Jennifer Vandenburg, and Calvin Phaylor.
He learned that Vandenburg’s only child had progeria syndrome, a rare and fatal disease. In the archives of the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes and Bloomberg, he read about Calvin Phaylor’s sudden fall from glory. Those reports led him to the archives of the New York Times, and a fifteen-year old article entitled “Death Stalks Group Seeking Answers to Life.”
He read that Phaylor and PLP had sponsored an International Symposium on Genetics in Medicine to bring in top scientists from around the world. Two of them, Dr. Chou An-ming and Dr. Niels Jorgansen, died tragically the day before attending.
Jianjun nearly jumped out of his chair. Finally, a connection! He got himself a frappuccino with whipped cream to celebrate and continued reading.
To calm the People’s Republic of China’s suspicions about Dr. Chou’s deadly accident, the FBI investigated. Jianjun suspected Interpol and the CIA were also involved. Nothing was found according to news reports, but it was the beginning of the end for Phaylor. A year later, he was put on administrative leave for fiscal irresponsibility, and a year after that, he was dismissed. A search for a new CEO began. Milton Zonovich acted in the position, but eventually the board selected Jennifer Vandenburg.
From what Jianjun had read about progeria, Vandenburg would have known there was a problem with her daughter by the time she became CEO of the world’s largest pharmaceutical company. Under her leadership, PLP launched some initiatives that had to do with genetics and stem cell research. Nothing helped Vandenburg’s daughter, however.
Jianjun hacked into PLP’s administrative and email records, but could find no inside information.
Both Jennifer Vandenburg and Calvin Phaylor lived in New York City. Time to schedule another trip.
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Chapter 25
FROM THE MOMENT Melisse stepped between the pillars, everything felt out of kilter. She tried to tell herself nothing had happened, but she couldn’t ignore the way Ted had vanished from her sight.
The university group had scrambled off the mound and huddled together fearful and awestruck. Some insisted nothing had changed for them, and that it was Ted who had somehow disappeared, not them. The argument was far from resolved when they heard a loud, eerie shriek. They ran from the mound and the pillars, but were too scared to climb back up the steep mountain they had descended. They knew how slow and difficult that would be.
They clung close to each other as they tried desperately to make their way eastward, the direction they hoped would lead back to Telichpah Flat. They felt guilty about leaving Ted, wherever he was, but were too scared to stay near those unearthly pillars. All they wanted to do was go home.
Hungry and tired, they eventually stopped. They gathered wood for a campfire. Melisse and Devlin still had their metal canteens, so they at least could boil water to kill the giardia protozoa, an intestinal parasite that lived in the area’s streams and creeks.
The moon was high when the forest erupted in a series of howls. They weren't the shrill cries of coyotes, and the group wondered if they were wolves.
“Does anyone have a gun?” Brandi asked.
When no one answered Devlin said, “I think the only one who did was fired.”
Rempart tried not to think about stories he had heard of strange creatures found out here. “Any wild beasts are much more afraid of you than you are of them,” he announced, hoping to quell fears by platitudes.
“How does he know?” Brandi loudly whispered to Rachel.
“Everyone, get some sleep,” Rempart ordered. “We have a long day tomorrow.”
The students glanced at each other, every one of them too nervous and fearful to move until Melisse said, “He's right.”
o0o
As the sun began to rise, Melisse awoke.
Her mind kept telling her that what she saw was impossible, yet offered no logical answer.
She unclipped a tracking device from the inside of her cargo pants pocket. The green light wasn’t blinking. It looked dead. The tracking device kept tabs on where she was, so that, if the situation grew dangerous, she could be rescued. She suspected the electro-magnetic transmission that had stopped her watch had shorted the device.
The others still slept. She crept to the shelter of some trees. In another of the many pockets of her cargo pants she carried a phone. Dire emergencies only, she’d been told. This qualified.
The state-of-the-art phone looked like a Blackberry, but the water-tight lead-titanium alloy case shielded it from everything short of a nuclear blast. It uplinked to a constellation of 66 low-earth orbiting satellites that blanketed the globe. Its high capacity Iridium battery used a solar charger to avoid any downtime.
It was as dead as the tracking device.
“What are you doing?” She jumped and spun around to see Vince approach. “I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he said. “What’s that? A phone?”
She put the phone back in its case and shoved it in her pocket while saying, “Phones don’t work out here.” He might be a weakling, but he knew electronics. A high tech sat phone would cause questions she didn’t want to answer.
She hurried back to the camp where others were stirring. Hunger had caused them to wake early.
“Shouldn’t we go back to the pillars to see if we can find Ted?” Brandi asked. “First Brian, now Ted! I’m scared!”
“Ted probably couldn’t climb up the mound,” Devlin said. “I doubt we’ll find him.”
“I don’t get it.” Brandi began to sob. “I don’t understand where we are! What’s happening to us?”
The others started walking, leaving her behind. They had the same questions, and no answers.
She waited a while, but no one returned, no one offered comfort. Finally, she dried her eyes and set off after them.
As she walked, she noticed a strange, musky smell similar to that near the pillars. She began to move a bit faster. Her breathing quickened; her pulse pounded. The others were a lot farther ahead than she realized. She tried to jog toward them, but her legs were weak and tired, and before long a stitch caused her side to ache. She stopped, hand to waist, and bent forward in pain. She heard a noise in the brush up ahead.
“No,” she whispered, dropping to her knees. “Help me, somebody.”
It was Melisse. She realized Brandi had fallen behind and went back to help. She was just about to take Brandi’s arm when she smelled the foul odor. Leaves rustled; a twig snapped.
She put her hand at the back of her waist under her jacket and sweater and gripped a Beretta M9 semiautomatic pistol. It was warm against her skin, the familiar handle oddly comforting in this peculiar environment.
“Come on,” she ordered Brandi. “Move it!”
“It’s here,” Brandi whispered.
A flash of movement. Melisse spun left, toward the brush, gun in hand.
A low growl rumbled. A strange beast, well over a hundred-fifty pounds and shaped like an enormous brown weasel stood with its long snout in the air as if trying to analyze their scent. Then it rose up on its back legs, as tall as Melisse, its eyes yellow and malevolent, its claws long and glittering as if made of gold.
She had never seen, never heard of, anything like it. Trying hard to quell her shaking hand, she raised her gun. The beast’s growls grew louder, fiercer, as if it knew what a gun could do. The lips curled and a snake-like forked tongue lashed out at them. Shocked, Melisse nearly dropped the Beretta. In a surge of pure muscle, the monster leaped.
Two hands on the gun, Melisse fired, hitting its shoulder. The beast seemed to pivot in mid-air, and her second shot missed it altogether. It ran for the cover of the brush.
She fired once more.
She heard the crackle of dead twigs behind her this time. She spun around, gun poised.
“Stop! Don’t shoot!” Devlin shouted.
She lowered the handgun as the group cautiously moved forward.
“Where did you get that firearm?” Rempart demanded.
“What were you shooting at?” Devlin asked, seeing the ashen pallor of her face.
“It was a…a mountain lion,” she whispered, placing the gun in the holster at her back. She couldn’t possibly have seen what she thought, and Brandi was too hysterical to contradict her. “It came at us.”
Rempart’s mind spun back to tales he’d heard as he had researched coming to this area. He didn’t want to think about them. “Why didn't you tell me you had a gun?”
Melisse glared furiously at him. “What difference would my gun have made to you? At least I had one, or Brandi and I would be dead!”
“Perhaps I should be the one to hold it,” Rempart suggested, thinking about the mountain lion and Melisse’s reaction. She wasn’t a woman to scare easily.
Her voice turned deadly. “Only if you can take it away from me.”
Rempart backed away. “Let’s get away from here.”
“Yes,” Melisse murmured. “It isn’t dead. It might return.”
Brandi’s world spun, but she couldn’t take her mind off the creature. It was no mountain lion. It was the most frightening thing she had ever seen. She moved forward, shock and terror blocking out everything beyond the need to get away. But then she saw that everyone had stopped. Run, her mind cried. Why didn’t they keep going? Why were they waiting?
Melisse, too, stopped suddenly. It took another moment for Brandi to fully process what had happened. They stood at the edge of a cliff, the descent too sheer and steep to climb down. There was nowhere to go but back, where monsters waited.
Chapter 26
New York City
JENNIFER VANDENBURG QUIETLY walked out of her daughter’s bedroom, leaving the door open so she could hear if Felicity called her. The girl slept. Finally.
In a comfor
table seating nook in her master bedroom, Vandenburg drew in several deep breaths, then settled back in a pale green wingback chair, a lamp table at her side. She was running out of time. Rempart still hadn’t been found. She had arranged everything so carefully: Rempart, the sabbatical in Idaho, the field trip, even the maps. She had thought of everything, yet, she had nothing to show for it.
Her thoughts turned to the paramilitary group Phaylor had used years earlier. Was this strange disappearance the same as happened to them out there?
If trained military men couldn’t survive, how could a professor and some students?
No! She refused to think that way. Her plans would work.
Some might have thought her crazy, but she had proof that she was right.
Years earlier, Calvin Phaylor had tracked down a bizarre set of bones found in Central Idaho. No one could identify exactly what sort of animal they came from—some unclassified creature which made it easy to denounce the find as a clever hoax. But one thing no one could denounce was the scientific evidence that the bones had no normal age degeneration. The cellular degradation seemed to have slowed down so substantially, as if the creature had barely aged, as if it could live almost forever.
As if it could be immortal...
Thus began Phaylor’s obsessive interest in the area, an interest that led to his downfall and her rise.
Even now, after all she had learned, the rational part of her mind shouted that alchemy was bunk and a sham. But at a much deeper level, the idea that since everything in the physical world changed and developed, such change could be controlled, felt right. Since change could be sped up or slowed down, if slowed, life would naturally be extended, perhaps forever.
She lacked only the process to create a philosopher’s stone, the key to all alchemical change. The book in Idaho explained how to do it. Once she had that book, no one could stop her.
She would get the book. For Felicity’s sake.
