Mojave Green
Page 16
XV
Agent Allen liked working with Agent Kline. For one thing, everyone told him the truth. Everyone was totally intimidated by him. He was big. He was beyond big. The other agents called him Shaq, after the famous basketball player. In truth, he was shorter than the real Shaq, but had a larger chest and biceps the size of Roman columns. His skin was black black, very dark and very African. Everyone was afraid to lie to him, so conducting interviews was easy.
When he talked, he had a slight eastern accent, maybe Bostonian, very upper crust, very educated. And educated he was, with a master’s degree from MIT in electrical engineering and a PhD from Boston College in applied physics. Agent Allen didn’t know if people were more intimidated by his size or his remarkable intelligence. No, that wasn’t true; she knew. People were more intimidated by his size. But his intelligence certainly helped.
Interviews around town with Camm’s friends had yielded nothing. No one had even known she was back in the valley. Some knew she was coming, but she hadn’t contacted anyone since her arrival. Obviously, she hadn’t had time to.
It wouldn’t have mattered much if she had. The whole town was being packed up and moved out. Swift Creek had put out some story about a chemical leak at the plant and hinted at possible radiation poisoning. Everyone was being moved to unused military housing on the Navy Base, near Ridgecrest, about twenty-five miles away.
Agents Allen and Kline were taking a break, sitting in a black SUV and having a burger in the parking lot outside of Trail’s End. A sign on Trona’s only fast food joint said it was closing the next day as a result of the evacuation.
To make conversation, Agent Allen asked, “So, what brings you to this party anyway?”
Agent Kline eyed her carefully. “I’m at a disadvantage. I don’t know how much you know, nor how much you are supposed to know.”
Agent Allen smiled ruefully. “That’s the way those old guys work, isn’t it? Keep everyone in the dark. Don’t share information, unless you have to, and never give anyone the whole picture.” She raised an eyebrow at Agent Kline. “You realize, don’t you, that is one way they keep control? That is how they manipulate.
“Unfortunately, it works against them, too. By keeping everyone from sharing what they know, we can’t help each other. We all have different pieces of the puzzle, but only they are allowed to know what pieces each of us has. The problem is, we might be better at putting the pieces together than they are.”
Agent Kline considered what she said as he finished his burger. He volunteered, “They haven’t actually told me I can’t tell you anything. It’s just that we all are used to keeping secrets, especially about the mansion.”
Lowering his voice, he said, “I was brought into this mission to fix the grandfather clock. Someone worked on the clock before me, but he did something wrong, so they decided to disable it. They won’t tell me what went wrong. I’m just supposed to make the clock work, so it will be ready when they decide to turn it back on.
“Problem is, as far as I can tell, there is nothing wrong with the clock. Certainly, it’s not like any grandfather clock I have ever seen. I mean, besides its bizarre and ghoulish design, the interior working mechanism is completely different from anything I have ever encountered. It’s obviously more than a clock, and its intended function is clearly something other than keeping time. If they would let me start it up again, I could figure out what it does, but they won’t let me. They are waiting for something.”
He hesitated and ate a couple fries. Clearing his throat, he said, “I’ve told them it works, but they won’t tell me what it’s supposed to do. They keep telling me it is classified information. How can I make it do what it is supposed to do when I don’t know what that is?”
Agent Allen remembered the last time she had seen the clock, just about a year ago. She looked intently at Agent Kline. “When I was here before, the clock had been damaged. Camm and Cal had used guns in the mansion, and it looked like someone had shot the clock with a shotgun.”
Agent Kline looked perplexed. “Why would they shoot the grandfather clock?”
“I think they were shooting at that green rat, and the clock was just collateral damage.”
Now Agent Kline looked really perplexed. “The what rat?”
Those dirt bags, Agent Allen thought, they make all our jobs so unnecessarily complicated by compartmentalizing the information they give out.
“You don’t know about the green rat, huh?” She then asked carefully, “Do you know about the giant snake or the giant spiders?”
Agent Kline looked at her as if she were from outer space. “I have no idea what you are talking about. Though, I am aware of the rumors floating around town about numerous giant spider sightings. I guess until now, I hadn’t given them much credence.
“But I can tell you this clock in the mansion is a massive mechanism. Not just in size, but in actual mass. I haven’t been able to identify all the metals used in its composition, but it weighs tons. And while it functions, it seems to me there is more to this clock than is actually located there in the great hall. Our clock is designed to work with another piece, to interact with something else. Our clock in the mansion is working, but the other piece . . .”
He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Well, that is the missing piece of the puzzle. Something, whatever it is, wherever it is, is not interacting with our clock. I’m guessing that the other piece isn’t working. I just don’t know what the other piece is or how to get it to interact with our clock.”
They continued to eat in silence for a few minutes. Finally, Agent Kline cleared his throat and swiveled in his seat to look directly into Agent Allen’s eyes. “Maybe, if you told me what happened in the mansion last year, when you were here with those kids, Camm and Cal . . . and, maybe, if you told me everything you know about giant discolored rodents and in-
sects . . . then, maybe, just maybe, you and I could put together a few more pieces of the puzzle.”
Agent Allen considered his proposition in silence. For all the complaining she did about Misters S and C, she too was hesitant to share all she knew. How much did she trust Agent Kline? Knowledge was power, and power had to be shared carefully.
XVI
The boys were hungry, very hungry.
Neither showed much interest in the grandfather clock. They didn’t know if it would work and didn’t know how long they could go without getting something substantial to eat. The MREs were about gone, and those skimpy, dry meals had not cured their hunger anyway.
They decided to come back to the clock later, when they weren’t starving to death. Though it wasn’t their first choice, they both agreed they would have to actually kill something, cook it, and eat it, in order to have the strength to keep working on the clock.
Cal had hunted, but that had been with his dad, who always gutted and skinned the deer. A butcher in Ridgecrest always cured and cut up the meat. Cal’s mom always prepared and cooked the meat for dinner. Other than shooting the deer and eating it, Cal hadn’t really done much of the work. Besides the eating part, Lenny had even less experience, but he was complaining the loudest about the fast-approaching prospects of starvation.
While that big jackrabbit had never come back to the mansion, they had occasionally seen it in the distance, eating whatever rabbits eat. Cal had seen it again that very morning, not too far away, so both Cal and Lenny went hunting.
Getting close to where the rabbit was feeding, they split up. Cal hid behind some large mesquite bushes with his .357 ready. Lenny circled their prey, intending to scare it toward Cal, who would try to get close enough to kill it with the pistol. A .357 revolver was a powerful weapon, but Cal knew it was not accurate at long distances. If he could get close enough, he could just point and fire, killing their prey.
A hot sun was out in a clear sky and hardly a breeze stirred. The temperature was already hovering in the nineties. A shadow crossed over Cal and moved on, but he hardly noticed it. All his concentration
was on the giant jackrabbit. He hoped that Lenny would not spook it too soon and end up chasing it in the wrong direction.
Cal figured they could eat for days off this one kill. He had heard that jackrabbits were not good eating, but he was hungry enough now that he didn’t care. He crouched on one knee, leaning forward on the other foot. His left hand was knuckles down on the ground. He held the gun in his right hand, cocked and ready to fire. The idea was that as the rabbit ran by him, he would sprint from behind the bushes and get off at least one good shot as close as possible.
It was a bit like waiting for the ball to be hiked, and then blitzing the quarterback. He smiled at the thought of using a .357 Magnum as a linebacker in a football game. That would be a game changer for sure.
Lenny had circled around the rabbit and was coming up on it from the other side. By being exactly opposite the rabbit from where Cal was hiding, they hoped that when Lenny jumped out, the rabbit would run directly toward Cal. At least, that was the plan.
Cal could see Lenny staring at him, trying to see if he was ready. Cal gave him a little salute, indicating all was set. Lenny jumped up, waving his arms, and started shouting and running toward the rabbit, which had been grazing quietly.
The six-foot rabbit startled to attention, glanced at the running, yelling Lenny, and bounded toward the stealthily waiting Cal. Cal rose up in the starters’ position and checked the revolver, making sure the safety was off. The rabbit was only about twenty yards away and coming fast. Cal tensed, ready to charge out of hiding and make the kill.
Before he could move, Cal heard a terrible noise above him. It felt like someone sticking needles in his eardrums. It sounded like a thousand fingernails being scratched across an enormous chalkboard. Lenny had stopped running and was holding his hands over his ears, looking up in disbelief at the sky over Cal’s head.
A giant shadow flashed by. Sensing that something was descending down on top of him from behind, Cal dropped flat onto his stomach. As he flopped to the ground, he accidentally fired the .357, sending a bullet bouncing off the dirt only feet from Lenny. The flying dirt from the bullet caused Lenny to jump, then dance to the side in a comical way.
It would have looked comical, except Cal was fixated on what was happening to the rabbit. A giant hawk reached down with colossal talons and snatched the oversized jackrabbit up into the air. A hawk? No, it had to be an eagle, or condor,
or . . . what?
At that size, it could have been a Cessna. It was the size of a four passenger Cessna airplane, and it was flapping away with the squirming rabbit held firmly in its claws.
Lenny jogged over to Cal, who was picking himself up off the ground. The two stood and watched together as their intended dinner was carried through the sky into the nearby mountains. The boys, their stomachs still rumbling, looked at each other with wide eyes.
Simultaneously, they both said, “Dude!” That pretty much said it all.
XVII
Camm woke up, but didn’t open her eyes. Her head hurt, and she felt totally disoriented. She couldn’t remember whether it was day or night, or even where she was. So much had happened in so little time. She was afraid to look and see where she had ended up. Was she in the mountains? Had she been discovered and taken back to the mansion? She didn’t know. If she opened her eyes, would Cal be there? The thought made her heart ache. Had she lost Cal forever?
Cal’s disappearance had been the most difficult thing she had ever had to deal with. Even when they were separated by hundreds of miles, when she was in Connecticut and he in Florida, they could still communicate with each other whenever they wanted. Only now that he was gone from this world, possibly never to come back, did she realize what a large part of her life he filled. It was a part of her life that could no longer be explained away with simple phrases, like a lifelong friend or her best friend.
Camm finally admitted to herself that Cal was much more than a friend. Their relationship had become deeper than she ever thought it would. How sad, she thought, that it took his unexpected disappearance to make her come to this realization.
Now, she regretted the way she often treated him. She was often exasperated with him, talking down to him like he was a child. Too easily, she took him for granted, not appreciating the little things he did for her. When she bossed him around, he rarely pushed back, but in his good-natured way, he supported her in whatever she wanted to do. He happily called her the boss.
What she had taken for immaturity now seemed like the unbridled love of the moment. What she thought was silly now seemed to be the natural outgrowth of a good sense of humor. Once, she had thought him disorganized and impetuous; now she missed his enthusiasm for life and willingness to take risks.
She wished she had been less impatient with Cal and instead had been able to adopt his passion for whatever he was doing in the moment. Never had she met someone who was as naturally excited about life’s simple pleasures and constantly as happy as he was—not even Sally. With a pain in her heart, she felt she had been trying to dampen that happiness, as if somehow that would make him more responsible, more like her. She realized she didn’t want him to be like her—she wanted him to be like Cal. She needed him to be like Cal.
Tears welled into her tightly shut eyes as she allowed herself to feel the extent of his loss. She covered her face with both hands. Her body spasmed as involuntary sobs quaked through her frame. Then, she made herself stop. Only for a moment would she allow herself the comfort of emotion. What she really wanted was action.
He isn’t dead. He has just gone away for a while, she told herself.
From what she understood, that stupid snake had come and gone several times. Cal had simply gone with it this last time. He would come back. She would help him come back. It was time to get to work. She promised herself she would find a way to bring Cal back. Her jaw clenched. When Camm made herself a promise, she always kept it.
Through brute strength of will, she forced the heavy emotions away from her. Still keeping her eyes closed, she slowly began to sense her surroundings. She was lying on her back on an uneven, hard surface. Touching it with her fingers, she determined she was lying on a flat, but chiseled, rock. Reaching up to her forehead, she felt a painful knot. The air felt cool, almost uncomfortably cold, and was full of a familiar, earthy, musty smell.
Listening, she heard nothing. Nothing stirred. There were no birds chirping, no breeze blowing. Everything was deathly quiet, absolutely still. Her only sensations were the cool air, a headache, and a slight ringing in her ears.
Finally opening her eyes, she saw . . . nothing. It was completely and entirely black. She moved her hand inches in front of her face and saw nothing. It was darker than the darkest night. There was nothing to see, not even a single photon of light.
So, where was she? Was she underground? Was she back in the mansion, down in a deep dungeon? Was she sealed in a vault or casket? Was she totally crazy?
Taking a deep breath, Camm collected her thoughts. In spite of the pain in her head and in her heart, it was time to start thinking logically. She wasn’t crazy.
What was the last thing she remembered? She clearly recalled discovering the secret passage in the mansion and running away into the windy desert night. She had been discovered, and had run up into the foothills west of the high school, below the Trona “T.”
The mine! She had found a mine and hidden inside.
The body! There had been a dead body, standing like a sentry at the mouth of the mine. She recalled shushing it, talking to it. She remembered the Swift Creek agents had moved on without discovering her hiding place. They did not find her. No, but something else did.
Her head ached. Did I imagine that?
Feeling around her, she decided she was lying on a rock ledge, near its edge. She sat up and swung her feet over the edge. Her feet touched a dirt floor. Was she still in the mine?
The voice! The voice was the last thing she remembered. Did that dead body talk to her?
She had not been alone in the mine. Someone else, someone alive, had been inside with her and had talked to her.
At that moment, Camm saw a dim light approaching. Slowly it brightened. She realized she was in a small rock alcove off a main tunnel. So, she was still in the mine. The light was approaching the room through the tunnel.
The low doorway lit up as a very ancient man hobbled up, stopping just outside. He was small, so hunched over that he seemed almost bent in half. Wisps of white hair floated off the top of his head and around his chin. His skin was shriveled and deathly pale. Round, homemade frames held thick lenses in front of bright gray eyes. In his right hand was a thick candle. His left sleeve was empty, folded and pinned to the shoulder of his shirt.
“Oh ho!” he chortled. “At last, sleeping beauty has awoken!” He smiled an almost toothless smile at her. “You had quite a case of syncope, fell and banged your head, you did. Though, I don’t think you hurt yourself too bad.”
As he entered the little room with the fat, flickering candle, Camm finally got a clear view of all her surroundings.
She gasped. OH NO! Not more dead bodies!
XVIII
“Holy . . .” Agent Kline hesitated, his eyes wide in disbelief. “Mary, Joseph, and the twelve apostles.” Without even realizing what he was doing, he solemnly genuflected.
Agent Allen couldn’t help smiling, but she knew exactly how he felt. The first sight of the green rat was always shocking. She had brought her partner down the narrow stone stairway to the rat’s prison—without permission from Swift Creek. Agent Kline’s immense frame barely squeezed into the available space.
The rat stood on all four feet, glaring hate at them. Its pointed fangs were bared with mossy-colored saliva dripping into puddles. Sharp claws gripped the dirt floor as the rat crouched backward, as if it would spring through the Plexiglas and eat them.