Camm had tried explaining Trona to her East Coast friends. It was like trying to explain life on a different planet. As Camm looked over the dilapidated homes and trailers, the place now looked surreal. People lived their whole lives here and knew nothing else. Now, Camm was almost sorry she did know something else. She enjoyed being fiercely loyal to Trona.
She climbed out of the car and circled around to help J.R. get out. As she guided him up the hard dirt pathway to the house, she asked, “What does ‘J.R.’ stand for anyway.”
The old man chortled to himself as if he was about to reveal a great joke. “It stands for what it abbreviates: Junior!” The answer caught Camm off guard. She knew it was significant, but didn’t have time to figure out why.
Knowing from prior visits not to try the front door, Camm went directly to the side door. The old car that had been in the driveway was gone. A used but somewhat newer car was parked in its place. A light was shining from within the house. Someone was home.
Camm banged on the door loudly three times. She wanted the elderly Sarah to hear her. Surprisingly, the door opened immediately. In the doorway stood, not Sarah, but Miss Cathleen.
“Oh, it’s you.” Miss Cathleen peered out over the top of her glasses. Cutting off any reply, she said, “Come in, come in. There is someone here who wants to see you. Have your ears been burning?”
Camm stepped inside, gently steering J.R. into the small kitchen.
Miss Cathleen eyed the old man suspiciously. “And who is this?”
“Someone I want Sarah to meet.” Camm glanced around the otherwise-empty kitchen. “And who is it that wants to see me?”
If Miss Cathleen was suspicious of J.R., Camm was also suspicious of anyone wanting to see her. After all, half the town was looking for her.
“I want to see you,” said a voice from the next room.
Before Camm could react, Martha ran into the kitchen and gave Camm a hug, her face tight against Camm’s shoulder. “I’m so glad you came here. I’ve been so worried about you. No one would tell me anything after you disappeared.”
Camm pushed Martha back by her shoulders and gave her a careful look. “I’m glad to see you, too, but how did you get here? I thought you would be in L.A. by now.”
Sarah shuffled into the kitchen, but stopped in the doorway, bringing a hand to her mouth. She leaned against a wall. Looking expectantly at J.R., her eyes began to glisten.
“I ran into Martha in Ridgecrest,” Miss Cathleen said. “I can tell you the rest later. First, where have you been? How did you get here? And who is this you have brought with you?”
“I know who this is.” The voice was hesitant and small, but also sweet and clear. Tears now trickled down Sarah’s cheeks. She held out her hands in J.R.’s direction.
“Al? Al, have you really come back to me?”
Camm was stunned. She looked at J.R. and saw tears flowing down his cheeks as well.
He held out his right hand and stepped toward Sarah. “Oh, my sweet, sweet Sarah. My dearest, my darling. I have finally found you. I have come home to you.”
He took her in a tight one-arm hug and tenderly kissed her on the lips. They gazed into each other’s eyes as he released her to reach up and gently stroke her hair.
For the moment, nothing more needed to be said. Even Miss Cathleen was wordless.
Camm had no idea that two octogenarians could provide such a touching, such a romantic, such an emotional scene. She felt her own eyes tearing up.
This whole time she had been hiding out with Alberto Samuel, Junior. The rightful owner of the Searles Mansion, and the last surviving keeper of its deepest secrets. He was still alive, and, after more than sixty years living in a cave, was now reunited with the love of his life.
Camm looked at Miss Cathleen. “Say hello to your father-in-law.”
XXX
Scowling deeply, Mr. C walked along the second floor balcony. All his plans were falling apart and he was not happy. The excruciating pain in his feet and back did nothing to improve his mood. Each step felt as if he were walking barefoot on sharp gravel. To make matters worse, a sudden pain, like an electrical shock, would randomly shoot through his legs and lower back. Stress only increased the pain.
His pocket was full of Vicodin pills, but he knew he couldn’t take one. He needed a clear head at midnight, and he needed the pain to keep him more wary and alert. Mr. C used pain to remind him of the tasks at hand and to help him push other matters out of his mind. Tonight, he would need all his mental facilities active if he was going to make it through the night alive.
He stared over the balcony rail at Agent Kline, seated at the foot of the stairs below. Mr. C had counted on having Kline to help them work the grandfather clock at midnight. So many things could go wrong, and Kline was one of his best problem solvers. Now they would have to do the best they could without him. Bringing back those two knuckle-headed college boys from the overlapping dimension was turning out to be almost more trouble than it was worth.
They had tried to get Agent Kline to a bedroom upstairs, where he would be safe, but it had taken all their combined efforts just to get him up the spiral stone stairs and into the main hall. Once there, he hadn’t wanted to move from the foot of the staircase. If anyone tried to move him farther, he became agitated. He was just too big and strong to force.
Right now, he was holding his hand in front of his face, turning it back and forth, looking at it as if it were the most amazing thing he had ever seen. He was silent, except for an occasional comment such as, “Mind-blowing” or “Fabulous, extremely fabulous” or even “I can see my bones and tendons. They’re multi-colored!”
True, they had obtained phenothiazine as an anti-psychotic and valium as a calming agent, just in case, but they didn’t have time to play nursemaid to Agent Kline. As long as he remained calm, there was no reason to put more chemicals in his system. He was calm as long as everyone left him alone, staring at his hand. For now, the best plan was to not agitate him.
Mr. C started down the large staircase, holding a pool cue in his hand. In spite of himself, he was using it as a cane. It didn’t relieve the pain, but it helped him move faster.
He stepped around Agent Kline at the bottom stair. Hesitating for a second, he studied Agent Kline, who seemed more alert. “Agent, are you feeling better?”
Agent Kline did not take his eyes off his hand, but responded nevertheless. “I have the most fascinating fingers and thumb.”
Mr. C didn’t take the time to sigh, but moved on toward the giant grandfather clock. Electric work lights had been set up around the perimeter of the room, all aimed at the clock. A few agents, including Agent Allen, were standing near the walls, trying to stay out of the way, but available in case something should happen.
Agent Allen had the Smith and Wesson 500 conspicuously stowed away in a shoulder holster. Mr. C nodded in her direction. “I trust you know how to use that cannon?”
She looked annoyed. “I am a special agent with the FBI. I trained in the use of all hand weapons. I know what I’m doing.”
Mr. C hoped so. It was one thing to know how to handle a standard revolver, but that Smith and Wesson 500 Magnum was basically hand-held field artillery.
Mr. S stood in front of the clock, looking over a checklist. He glanced up as Mr. C approached. “I think everything is in order. We should be ready to go. It’s a good thing Agent Kline was so meticulous in keeping a written log.”
Mr. C snorted in derision and waved a hand in the air as if batting away a pesky fly. “Everything is out of order, and we are ready for nothing. The rat is missing. Who knows where it is. Our clock expert is in a daze and sitting over there, right in the way of any confrontation that may arise in connection with a cross over. He is staring at his own hand and hopped up on enough LSD to send a horse into outer space.
“We don’t know how this clock works, if it does work, or possible negative scenarios that will be generated from using it. And worst of all, wi
thout the rat acting as the guardian in the mansion, we don’t know whether performing this transition will bring the giant snake or something even worse through to this side in the cross over. We should have brought more agents. It is difficult to see how we could be less prepared.”
Mr. S smiled a grim smile and patted Mr. C on the shoulder with his bandaged hand. “Always the optimist. You are always the optimist.” Mr. S scanned his checklist again. “It will be interesting to interview those boys once we get them back. They should be able to tell us quite a bit about the transverse side to this world.”
Mr. C grunted, “If we get them back.”
Mr. S ignored the comment.
It crouched behind oleander bushes a safe distance from the mansion and waited, hidden by the dark. Anticipating this night’s work, it began to drool green slime.
It knew the mansion. It knew the worlds on both sides. It knew how to work with the transitions. It knew the mansion was no longer its prison. Things had changed. The devilish frame was gone. The cursed chain was gone. It had no intention of going back to its prison, not in the morning, not ever.
It knew about the snake. It knew more than the humans did about all transition creatures, and it knew the humans were ignorant. It could sense a transition was coming. And it knew how to interfere, how to cause them trouble. It would stay long enough to upset their plans. Then it would disappear before . . . just before.
Tonight, it would feed, maybe even on the despised one. She was back. It had followed her scent in the mansion. But if not on the despised one, it would feed on one who had caused it pain. It had been too long since it had tasted human flesh. Tonight, it would fill itself.
A thick green mist swirled from its nostrils with every breath. The overwhelming stench of sulfur and things long dead soon spread across the ground like the harbinger of death that it was. Putrid green drool ran down its long fangs and dripped to the ground.
Tonight it would feed!
XXXI
“Tonight when all hands are up, there it will come. All will be fierce. All will be danger and death at last, even as at first.”
Camm rubbed her tired eyes, and stared intently at Al Jr. He had started talking gibberish again. No one could put it all together, not even Sarah, who was sitting next to him.
“Death will be there, oh yes. Death will watch, but will not aid us, oh no. It will not.” He closed his eyes as if to concentrate and continued holding tight to Sarah’s hand.
Camm could see Al Jr. was struggling. All these years, his only companions had been dead bodies. Camm knew how little conversation that produced. How long had it been since he had actually spoken to live people? For so long, he had just spoken to himself. It had to be difficult for him now to communicate what he knew.
Al Jr. opened his eyes and squeezed Sarah’s hand. “V. ready seer pans will be the challenge tonight, and death will watch, will watch with celebration.”
Martha whispered to Camm, “What is he talking about?”
Camm rolled her eyes. “I’ve been listening to him for days. I still don’t understand him.”
Camm turned to Sarah, nodding toward the old man. “Do you know what he is saying? You were . . .you are his wife.”
Sarah just shook her head and buried her face in Al Jr.’s shoulder.
Without disturbing Sarah, Al Jr. turned to look directly at Camm. “I have been watching. Oh yes, watching all these years. I observe you. I observe him. I observe death. You act good, righteous good, but it was taken away by fools. Tonight death laughs. When all hands are up, it comes back. Green and red will spill, will mix again. Tonight death feeds.”
Camm glanced at Miss Cathleen, who only shrugged her shoulders. She did not understand the old man either.
Camm looked back at Al Jr. He nodded at Camm. “You understand. You go. You know it. It know you. You look at death. Death look at you. You go stop death when all hands are up.”
A chill ran down Camm’s spine. She did understand some of what the old man was saying. She looked at the clock; it was after eleven o’clock. She looked at Martha.
“When he says, ‘When all hands are up,’ he means midnight. Something happens at the mansion tonight at midnight. I believe that is what he is trying to tell us.”
The old man nodded his head vehemently. “Yes, yes. You go. You stop fools. Time to stop death. Time to stop both, or red and green will mix again, very much so.”
Camm released a weary sigh as she stood up. Turning to Martha, she said, “We need to talk. I have so much I want to tell you, but Al Jr. is saying I have to go back to the mansion first. I have to go right now, or I will be too late!”
XXXII
As midnight approached, Agent Allen grew nervous about the number of lights they had in the mansion. Or better said, by the lack of lights they had in the mansion. The main hall was brightly lit for now, but she remembered how easily the rat had extinguished the lights along the stone spiral staircase. Right now, they didn’t even know where the rat was. It might be hidden in some secret compartment somewhere in the mansion, waiting for the transition.
How did Camm and Cal cope with the lights when they attacked the rat, she wondered. She wished she had asked more questions when she had had the chance.
Glancing around the main hall, the large fireplace at the far end triggered a memory. The morning that she had discovered Camm and Cal still in the mansion after fighting off the rat, the fireplace had held the remnants of a still smoldering fire.
A fire? Was it harder for the rat to extinguish a hot burning fire than it was to block an electric light? Somehow that made sense.
Her memories sent her back to the first time she had entered the cavernous main hall with Camm. At the time, she had thought the mansion weird and otherworldly, even slightly interesting. Now it felt foreboding and sinister. With its black slate floor, fearsomely carved baroque woodwork, and grotesquely cut stone bricks, the mammoth room seemed taken out of an earlier and more primeval time. It had been designed as a place for evil things to happen.
There was no time to think more about the fireplace. The focal point now was the clock, whose hands pointed straight up, waiting for midnight to arrive. It was hard to believe the giant grandfather clock was a sophisticated piece of machinery. With its hangman pendulum, bizarre carvings, and enormous size, it looked like a sadistic piece of Salvador Dali artwork. She looked at her watch—only a few minutes to go. She wished she had thought about the fireplace sooner.
Misters S and C stood next to the clock. Mr. S watched the time on an electric device that showed him the exact time down to a thousandth of a second. Mr. C was reviewing notes on a small note pad. He held a pool cue in his left hand with the butt end down on the slate floor as if it were a shepherd’s staff.
Agent Kline sat on the stairway, his legs splayed out in front as he reclined back on the steps above him, his large hand still out in front of his face. Everyone knew he should be somewhere else, but no one was big enough to move him against his will. It would be some time before all the LSD metabolized out of his body.
J.R. stood not too far away from Agent Allen, but he was no longer talking to her. She was glad about that. His split lip was thick and swollen with tape across the break. He needed stitches. She almost felt bad about that.
Mr. C had said little about the incident, except that J.R. would have to wait until the next day to seek medical treatment because they were already short on agents.
J.R. had not been happy.
The weight of the Smith and Wesson 500 Magnum hung heavy on Agent Allen’s shoulder. Patting it, she smiled. At least there was one thing she could count on tonight.
Mr. S announced loudly to the whole room, “Sixty seconds, everyone, sixty seconds to midnight.” With his announcement, as if it had been planned, all the lights in the mansion blinked once, twice, three times, and then went out. All the lights they had wired in the main hall, all the extra lights they had brought in, and every light in the mansion
went out.
At first it was pitch black, while their eyes adapted to the sudden change in illumination. The only light now was the moonlight and stray light coming in through the windows from the chemical plant next door. Because of the evacuation, most of the rest of the town was dark. The available light was extremely dim. Everything in the hall was masked by deep, dark shadows.
At the same time, a gagging sulfur smell filled the hall. It was almost painful to breathe. And the temperature was dropping noticeably as well. The hall was beginning to feel like a sub-zero, arctic cooler. Even though there was very little light, Agent Allen could still see her breath.
For a moment, all was silent in the room. Then she heard Mr. C’s voice. “This is great, just great. Where did we put those special-forces headlamps?”
Mr. S’s voice filled the hall. “Ready everyone! Battle positions. Midnight is coming, with or without lights.”
J.R. turned on his flashlight. It immediately dimmed, flickered, and then went out.
“Leave your flashlights off!” Mr. S commanded, his voice harsh. “Don’t turn them on until we really need them.”
All was quiet again until Agent Kline’s deep voice rang out. “This is so cool.”
Agent Allen wrapped her fingers around the handle of the Smith and Wesson 500 and leaned back against the wall to brace herself. Dark or light, she was ready.
Camm pulled up in front of the mansion in the purloined car. Martha was on her way back to Ridgecrest with Miss Cathleen to check in before her curfew. Camm had not gotten the whole story as to how Martha had come out to Trona with Miss Cathleen. That would have to wait until later.
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