by Bill Clem
Nothing! She jumped hard on the starter again, but nothing happened. Paul tapped her on the shoulder. “Jennie, look.”
Twenty yards away, the Viper had spotted them and began to run toward them.
“Let me try,” Paul said. He stomped down on the starter and the little bike coughed, sputtered, then sprang to life. He climbed on the seat and Jennie jumped behind him as they bounced across the grassy embankment and wobbled onto the dirt road.
Enraged, the Viper raced toward them, and fired two shots that went whizzing past Paul’s head. Seconds later, they left him in a cloud of dust.
Chapter Forty-Six
Phillip Baxter held the phone in stunned silence as Hans Brinkman explained to him how Paul Grant and Jennie Bradford had gotten away.
“What happened?” Baxter asked. There was an electric silence.
“It’s not that easy to maneuver a chopper in the jungle,” Brinkman told him.
“And did they find out everything?”
“I think so, yes,” Brinkman said. “It was that fucking Yohagi chief. But don’t worry. We’re going to take care of that bunch tonight.”
“What about my shipment?”
“It’s on the way.”
“Thank God.” Baxter felt the tightness in his chest start to subside.
“You want me to come up there and deal with those two?”
“No... no, I think I’d like to deal with them myself.” Baxter hung up.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Jennie hung on for dear life as Paul throttled the small motorbike for all it was worth. Behind them, Jennie could see another scooter gaining on them. She put her chin in Paul’s shoulder.
“If this thing can go any faster, do it. We’ve got company.”
Paul glanced behind them. “You’re fucking kidding me!”
Jennie turned sharply and looked again. Two natives with blow guns in hand were rocketing down the dirt road toward them at a speed that, to Jennie, looked a lot faster than she and Paul were going.
Fifteen minutes later, with the other motorbike still closing in on them, Jennie could just make out the image of the plane in the distance ahead.
Suddenly Paul slowed down and was rolling to a stop.
Jennie nudged him. “What are you doing?”
“Trust me.”
As the other bike got within twenty feet of them, Paul jerked back the throttle full force and the Vespa lurched forward, digging out a blinding cloud of dust, rocks and smoke. Jennie looked back just in time to see the other bike careen out of control and flip over, throwing the two men off in different directions.
“Good thinking,” Jennie yelled over the buzz of the motorbike’s engine.
As they neared the plane, Paul slowed and pulled alongside the cockpit. Jennie jumped off and in one quick motion jerked the pilot-side door open. Paul dropped the bike to the ground and clambered around and into the other seat. Poison-tipped arrows clattered on the plastic windows and rang against the metal.
Jennie quickly checked out the controls then jammed the ignition button. The engine coughed a couple of times but failed to start. She adjusted the throttle and tried again. This time, the engine roared to life, amplified by the dense jungle on either side of them. Paul was still buckling his seatbelt as Jennie gunned the engine. The Cessna began to pick up speed, advancing down the dirt runway, a line of purple exhaust trailing behind it. Jennie tried to maintain a gentle touch on the controls, but on the bumpy dirt runway, the jarring motion slowed the plane’s acceleration. The Torabo came running out of the forest brandishing spears and arrows. Pale white arrows sliced through the air, but fell short of the fuselage, arcing back down to the ground.
Knowing that if the plane didn’t reach takeoff speed soon, it would crash into the trees at the end of the airstrip, Jennie willed herself calm and let the plane do the work. Soon, it picked up speed and she gave the yoke a slight pull. The wheels left the ground and the plane began its ascent. At the same time, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She looked out her window and stared in disbelief.
“Oh my God, Paul. One of the natives is on the wheel well.”
“He must have jumped on as we were taxiing.”
“I’ll fix that,” Jennie said.
She jerked the control stick hard to the left, then back again hard to the right.
When she looked again, the native was plummeting to earth. “Take that,” she shouted. Looking over, she saw Paul’s face had lost all color.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, but next time you decide to do an air show, give me a heads up.”
Jennie laughed. “Sorry. How bout we go home, now?”
“Please.”
* * *
Five hundred feet below, Hans Brinkman cursed silently as the plane disappeared beyond the trees. He caught a blur of movement and then saw the two pygmies that had accompanied him were running into the jungle.
What the...
Brinkman stared toward the tree line, then staggered back a few paces. Something very large... no huge... lumbered out of the jungle.
The Viper couldn’t tell if the thing was an oversize ape or a demon from hell, but it cast a shadow that completely engulfed him. Brinkman had to use all his will just to avoid pissing himself.
The Mapinguary grabbed The Viper and lifted him as if he weighed mere ounces. He felt the triangular head clamp down on his upper arm with unimaginable force, slicing through muscle and bone. A flash of white-hot pain exploded as the thing shook its head violently, tearing Hans Brinkman’s arm from his body. He had no breath to scream as it tore huge chunks from his torso.
The last thing Brinkman saw was a crescent shaped mouth and a gorge of teeth clamping down across his face.
Then blackness...
The Fountain
Chapter Forty-Eight
Shortly after five o’clock, the residents of Harbor View ended their day by heading back to their dormitories to await further instructions from their leader, Charles Baxter. Several of the residents were complaining about their ‘treatment’ being late, but Baxter had assured them it was forthcoming.
Ainsworth Abbott, the oldest living resident of harbor View, gazed at his reflection, hardly recognizing the face in the mirror. His face was ghostly pale, his hair lank and straggly. Even though Abbott knew about the mysterious workings of the Yohagi herbs, the logical part of his mind had never accepted them. It was somehow easier to push the truth out of his conscious. He had also known the other ingredient needed in order to roll back eighty years of aging, something Baxter had confided to him years before. “The life-extending formula requires a sacrifice of human blood,” Baxter had told him. Abbott found that distasteful, but within an hour of his first treatment, everything that had been wrong with the elderly Abbott had disappeared.
Now, as he stood staring at himself, fear descended on him like a lead blanket. He did not want to die. Abbott summoned Baxter to his room, and a few minutes later, a light tap sounded on the door. Baxter entered, and Abbott could see he, too, was suffering the ravages of the accelerated aging process.
“What is it, Ainsworth?” Baxter asked.
“What is it?” he said, slamming his hand down on the table next to him. “Look at me. Look at the rest of the residents. And for that matter, look at yourself. We’re dying, right before our own eyes. I don’t want to die, Charles. You promised that—”
“Ainsworth, calm down. The shipment will arrive within the next several hours. We’ll be fine.”
“What about the other? Grant is gone. Don’t think I don’t know what goes on. How are we going to have the treatment without him? We need fresh meat, Charles.”
“I can assure you, Ainsworth, we will have all the ‘fresh meat’, as you call it, in short order. I have it from reliable sources that Paul Grant and his little filly are on their way back here as we speak. Now, rest while you can. It’s going to be a long night. You’ll need your energy. Don’t worry, Ainswort
h, I’ve kept you alive nearly a hundred years since we met. I’m sure another hundred are in your future.”
Chapter Forty-Nine
The Executive jet landed at precisely nine P.M. and Phillip Baxter sat waiting in his car next to his private hanger at Burlington Airport. He watched the gleaming white plane taxi to the parking area and come to a stop a short distance away. The cabin door dropped open and a small set of stairs was lowered to the pavement. A tall, slender figure emerged from the plane carrying a blue canvas bag. He hurried across to Baxter’s car.
Baxter lowered his window and exchanged glances with the unnamed man. “I take it everything is in order?”
“Yes, sir.”
Baxter popped the trunk and the man dropped the bag in like a well-practiced drill. He shut the trunk lid and walked back toward the plane. They both knew no other conversation was necessary. The job was done.
As he drove slowly out of the airport, Baxter felt an immense gravity pulling him. Harbor View and the residents within were his immutable destiny. Heading home excited him and he could feel the tidal pull of the ‘treatment’ in his bloodstream.
Two hours later, Baxter pulled into the drive of Harbor View.
Baxter hesitated, then rubbed his eyes. Something was in his headlights. He turned the engine off and stepped out, leaving the lights on. Dear God, I’ve got to hurry.
Ainsworth Abbott stood facing Phillip Baxter. His hair hung in unhealthy white strands and his face was ravaged with decades of accelerated age. He was stooped over nearly double. Baxter attempted to lead him inside and when he took Abbott’s arm, he heard it snap like a dry twig.
Then in slow motion, Ainsworth Abbott disintegrated before Phillip Baxter’s eyes.
Baxter stepped back in horror and looked down at the ground.
All that remained of Ainsworth Abbott was a robe covered by a pile of gray ashes and a few yellowed teeth.
Chapter Fifty
Sheriff Tucker O’Neil fingered the pack of Marlboro’s in his shirt pocket and blew a ragged breath. He was annoyed at being roused out of his bed at midnight, annoyed that his deputy was over in Atlantic City, and annoyed at himself for letting some outsider convince him to drive over to Harbor View Nursing Home and question its owner, Philip Baxter. The call had come from an airplane, of all places, and if the claims they made weren’t so bizarre, O’Neil would have stayed right in his warm bed snoring away. As it was, he’d received another call earlier in the day from the mother of the missing nurse, the one that had supposedly eloped after her tenure at Harbor View. Not so, said the girl’s mother. She would not have done that. O’Neil had planned on checking it out tomorrow, but now, after the crazy stories of witch doctors and Amazon jungle trips, it was just too much to ignore. It would make a good story to tell his deputy when he came back, if nothing else.
He followed Highway 45 out of town, the ghostly nightscape passing by him from the window of the police cruiser. Here and there, a lonely car crawled along the road, throwing a yellow beam into the great darkness. North of the town limits, all lights ceased; beyond lay the mountains and vast woods of the Vermont-Maine border, uninhabited in many parts.
O’Neil shook his head. It was one hell of a place to be at night.
A few minutes later, the road widened and O’Neil slowed down. He could see the massive granite facade of Harbor View in front of him, sitting atop a lone hill. He flicked on the high beams, but they only served to intensify the gloominess. He wheeled the cruiser to a stop on a granite driveway that encircled the facility and parked alongside the entrance. O’Neil’s eyes took in the conical turrets and the high crenellated walls. There were no lights on. Strange.
He felt as if he’d passed through a time warp, back to fourteenth-century Transylvania.
Christ, the place was big!
He slid out of the cruiser and tossed his cigarette butt onto the pavement in front of him. Walking over it with a twist of his toe, he entered the back entrance gate, passing under the huge wrought-iron sign that announced HARBOR VIEW. He gazed around at the deserted courtyard and walked down the stone path toward the building’s back doorway.
O’Neil lifted the massive brass knocker that decorated the iron-banded wooden door. He let it drop twice. I wonder if a toothless hunchback named Igor will answer the door.
The man who answered the door was neither toothless nor hunchback. He was tall with thinning gray hair and dressed in casual golf clothes. He could have been sixty or eighty, it was hard to tell his age in the dim light of the foyer. He looked haggard, but alert.
“You obviously are the Sheriff,” the man said, giving O’Neil the once-over.
“Yes sir, I’m sorry to bother you. You wouldn’t by any chance be Mr. Baxter, would you?’
“In the flesh,” he said with a bright smile, his hand extended.
Tucker nodded. “May I talk to you for a few minutes, Mr. Baxter?”
“Of course, Sheriff. Let’s go down to my study. I have some fresh coffee there.”
The hallway seemed endless, although it was hardly boring. Paintings and pictures of enormous plants and flowers and jungle scenery decorated the mahogany-paneled walls, the likes of which O’Neil had never seen.
The room they stepped into was a stark contrast to the facility’s oversized halls. It was small and intimate and looked more like a country cottage.
Please sit down,” Baxter said. “Now, how can I help you?”
Chapter Fifty-One
Pressing his nose against the window of the Cessna, Paul could see the broad expanse of ocean a thousand feet below. From the moment they’d taken off, with the exception of stopping to refuel on a small island, they’d been over water. Now as they neared the coast, the dark blue ocean became a brilliant turquoise, dotted with coral reefs, shoals, and true continental islands.
Paul was rife with anticipation. He was mapping out his plan in his mind as they neared the Florida coastline. With their quest to uncover the mystery behind Harbor View behind them, he was now ready to confront Baxter and stop him from killing anyone else.
“Paul, I don’t want you to panic, but hold on to your seat. We’re going to drop pretty quickly. The approach to this airfield is very quick and you might feel your stomach drop.”
He nodded. “I’m a veteran now. No problem.”
Paul had no more gotten the words out of his mouth when Jennie banked the plane hard to the right and they dropped a couple hundred feet. Paul felt his gut in his throat and he gulped air to quell his sudden nausea.
“You said, drop pretty quickly, Jennie. Not freefall.”
Jennie looked over. “Here we go again.”
The plane took another hard right and suddenly Paul could see the water coming up fast as Jennie lined the plane up with runway. Before he had a chance to say anything, he felt the thud of the landing gear hit the narrow asphalt strip. Jennie slowed the plane and taxied to a stop a few minutes later.
“Whew!” Paul said.
Jennie smiled. “Welcome to Key West. We’ll refuel and then head back to Vermont in an hour or so. I gotta check out the plane, so why don’t you grab us a bite to eat?”
Paul nodded. “Sure, just give me a minute. I have to wait for my stomach to return from my throat.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
“Now, what’s this all about, Sheriff O’Neil?”
“Well, a couple of things, actually. First off, you had an employee here last year by the name of Colleen Brady. Ring a bell?”
“Yes, of course. Colleen was one of our best nurses. The agency we use sent her.”
“Yeah, I know all that, but the thing is, I talked to someone here awhile back, after I got a call from a concerned relative. The lady who works for you...” O’Neil consulted his small notebook and looked up. “Here it is, I spoke with Margaret Melvin–“
“Yes, of course, Mrs. Melvin.”
“Well, Mrs. Melvin told me that Ms. Brady eloped with a young man she met here in town.”
&nb
sp; “That’s right.”
“Here’s the thing; Cutting, as you know, is a small town and I see everyone who comes and goes here, yet I don’t remember any out-of-towner being here long enough to have a, um, romance at that time. Do you happen to know his name?”
“No. The whole thing was very sudden. One day she was here, the next, her things were gone and so was she. She left a note explaining her departure, though.”
“Do you still have it?”
“I believe I do. If you’ll follow me downstairs to the personnel office, I can look it up.”
“Okay. Lead the way, Doctor.”
“By the way, Sheriff, you did say there were a couple of things. Is there another issue I can help you with?”
O’Neil looked at his watch. “How about we talk as we walk.”
As O’Neil plunged deep into the bowels of Harbor View, the air became swamp-like.
“Welcome to the catacombs of Harbor View,” Baxter proclaimed with the tone of a Disney tour guide.
The tunnel entered a small series of rooms that Baxter explained were the various offices used to store patient and employee records. Baxter kept going until they reached a huge chamber whose crimson light cast an eerie glow on a huge pipe organ. The temperature dropped and water glistened on the walls and dripped down on their heads.
“What is this?” O’Neil asked.
“Isn’t it magnificent? It’s been in the family for hundreds of years.”
“Impressive. Does it work?”
“See for yourself.”
O’Neil stepped forward and pushed several keys on the organ. After a slight hesitation, a deranged sounding note bellowed out of the huge pipes hugging the stone wall. It reminded O’Neil of the Phantom of the Opera CD he kept in his cruiser. When O’Neil turned around Baxter had a gun pointing in his face.
“You should have stayed in Cutting, Sheriff. I can’t let you cause me all this trouble over one missing nurse.”
