Penelope had crossed over some property lines. There had been signs attached to sagging barbed wire fences. The sun had faded the lettering. Where it wasn’t undecipherable, it had been shot through multiple times by bored hunters. However, it didn’t take an MIT professor to realize that she was, in fact, probably on someone’s private property. One sign had a crudely painted rendition of Mickey Mouse with a shotgun in his hands, so the point wouldn’t be lost.
And it would especially be the case if she had strayed onto John Rife’s property. He wouldn’t answer at phone number that Penelope had gotten from information, and so far, he hadn’t returned the message she’d left on his answering machine. Given the amount of bullet holes in the no trespassing signs, she hadn’t been looking for a warm reception.
However, if she were to pick from the lesser of two evils, Penelope would much rather it be John Rife, former airman and present-day rancher, than Anthony Littlesoldier, psychopath.
Penelope risked a glance over her shoulder. It wasn’t Anthony. It was a man who looked to be in his sixties. Gray haired and blue eyed, he stood about six foot two and wore a tan T-shirt and tattered Lee jeans. He wore a leather belt with a brass belt buckle the size of a cantaloupe that said it had been presented to the best calf roper of 1987 in Shackelford County. A pair of well-worn leather boots completed the dusty ensemble.
All Penelope could focus on was the shotgun cradled in his arms. It was cocked and pointed somewhere in the vicinity of her toes. Dammit, I like my toes, she thought and stepped backward. The end of the shotgun diligently followed.
“Okay, I’m trespassing,” Penelope admitted. “I needed to look at the old missile silo.”
The man with the shotgun looked unerringly over her shoulder to where the site was located. His eyes immediately came back to her. “You’d be better off if you forgot about that place,” he said matter-of-factly. The shotgun moved a little away from her.
“You must be John Rife,” she said. His eyes narrowed at the sound of his name.
“That no-account jackass Jack Bryne at the store in Flute,” he said with fervent clarity. “He sends dipshits up here on the average of once a month. Did he charge you for directions?”
Penelope shrugged, not willing to admit that she had shamelessly batted her eyelashes.
“Well, hell’s bells, girl, I’m not paying you a dime back,” John said sincerely. “And you can take it up with Jack. And I don’t own the property that the missile’s on.” He motioned over her shoulder. “Why in the name of St. Peter are you over here looking at it with binoculars?”
The expression on her face gave her apprehension away.
“Oh,” he said understandingly. “You’re here for more than just Cold War history. Maybe you’ve heard a tall tale? Something about things that have glowing red eyes and only come out at night?”
“What did you see, Mr. Rife?” she said quickly just as he was about to turn away from her with a look of disgust twisting his face.
John turned back, the disgust gone for the moment. He uncocked the shotgun and broke open the barrel, resting the break over his forearm so it couldn’t be fired by accident. His interest had been piqued. “What’s your name, girl?”
“Penelope. Penelope Quick,” she said honestly. “I think the man who bought this place has my mother down in the silo.”
John Rife was more perceptive than most people. His face didn’t change. “If you really know what you’re talking about, then you know George Gumbrell didn’t sell his place to anyone.” One large dirt-stained hand came up to wipe beads of perspiration off his clean-shaven upper lip. Although the weather was warm, there was a cool breeze flowing across the hills that made it bearable. John’s forehead and upper lip had broken out into a sudden uncontrollable sweat. “Jack said he went down to Florida, but George wouldn’t have done that.”
“Why is that?”
“Because he was a tight-wound prick who wouldn’t have left his ranch for a trillion dollars,” John said zealously. “It belonged to his daddy and to his daddy’s daddy, who came over from England in the last century. Texas was the only place a real man could settle, and that’s exactly what Zachary Gumbrell did. He’s buried behind the ranch house in the family cemetery.” He paused and added slowly so there could be no misunderstanding the content, “Just where George wanted to be buried.”
Penelope thought of the hand of the seatco with its Mickey Mouse watch and its red coloring and the strong forearm of a man who worked diligently at his family’s heritage. There was the sign with the gun-toting Mickey Mouse on it, too. She thought she knew what had happened to George Gumbrell, and it was the same thing that had happened to Jeremy Collins.
Her abject gaze came to rest on the distant missile site. “I think you might be right.”
“Who are you, really?” John asked roughly.
Penelope’s shoulder ached where Anthony had bitten it in her in the vision. She was a little weary from lack of sleep. She had only slept in the Wrangler for a few hours this morning at a truck stop just west of Fort Worth. The scratches on her face had stopped stinging the moment the witch had died, but everything all together felt like a whirlwind of activity and anxiety.
“I just want to stop the man who’s inside there,” she said and pointed toward the silo.
“You and what army?”
“I’m it,” she said plainly. “Jack said you used to be an airman there. Maybe you can help me out.”
“Jack’s got the mouth of a big-assed dinosaur,” John said vehemently. “And his brain is about as big as the little part of my pinky. And I won’t say what I think about the size of his dick on account of the fact that you’re a lady.”
“Well, if you think that George Gumbrell has been murdered for his land, why haven’t you told the cops about it then?” she asked, her brown eyes serious as a heart attack.
John grimaced. “What makes you think I haven’t? The sheriff went and talked to the new owner a month ago. Said his name was something Indian. You know, American Indian. Says he had all the paperwork, everything right and tidy. And just because George ain’t talked to anyone, including his own goddamned grandkids in Florida, don’t make no difference to anyone except his nosy ex-neighbor. Apparently, if George wants to up and disappear with what was supposedly a boatload of money, then that’s his God-given American right to do so. Supposedly he took his married lawyer with him. Her name is Delia, and she’s thirty years younger than him.” He paused for effect. “My ass.”
Delia was the one with the white forearm and the wedding band on her left arm. Penelope guessed Anthony had taken the lawyer out at the same time as the rancher.
John Rife stared at Penelope’s steady expression. It wasn’t disbelieving or mocking or anything else to indicate that she was having fun at an old rancher’s expense. “You’re not joking. Your mother is down there in that hell hole? With God alone knows what.” His fingers nervously rattled over the stock of the shotgun. Suddenly, he went still, having come to a decision. “Come on. I got a set of blueprints I ain’t supposed to have at the house. You can get into the silo by the back vent. It leads down to a set of maintenance stairs. You might run into some of those red-eyed motherfuckers, but I imagine you’ve got something in the back of that Jeep that will help you out with that.”
“I certainly do,” she agreed and finally smiled at him. John blinked and his craggy face cracked into a semblance of a smile.
*
John Rife showed her a set of blueprints that he had swiped from the United States Air Force once upon a time when he was about twenty-two years old. Why, he couldn’t say, and he didn’t remember the year exactly, but the missile silos were being phased out in 1965 in lieu of something bigger and more destructive. At that time he had been one of the crew in charge of closing out the bases and came in after the fact. He told her that the site of the Strategic Missile Squadron took up about twenty square acres and once had two Quonset huts that had long since vanished into sc
rap metal.
With a laugh that was not amused, John said, “A fella was supposed to only be able to gain access through an above ground entryway. It looks like something that leads to a storm cellar or such. However, that was the company line, if you know what I mean.” He spread out the blueprints across his kitchen table while his wife, Andrea, watched silently from her position at the coffee pot. Clearly she had heard this line of talk many times before.
John pointed out the locations of two air vents. “This ventilation system had two emergency exits that only staff with special clearances was supposed to know about. Ain’t much of a secret nowadays.” He jabbed a finger at one and said, “I know this one’s blocked. George told me that one of his sons tried to build a still in there, and it blew up. Caved in the entrance.” His finger pointed out another one. “But this one. Unless these people,” and he used the word “people” with unenthusiastic revulsion, “have scouted the entire complex, they probably won’t know about it. The door comes into the bottom level of the silo itself. Of course, it’s going to be fully or partially flooded. George told me that it was a regular swimming pool in there.”
“They’ve drained the silo,” Penelope said with certainty.
John gave Andrea a look. “How would you know that?”
“I know because I know the man who’s orchestrating all of this,” she said. “Haven’t you noticed the sound of a sump pump or something like that? Maybe the sounds of a generator running all night?”
Andrea nodded solemnly. She was a woman in her late fifties who looked to be just as tough as her husband and just as disinclined to be lenient to their newest neighbors. “On a real quiet night, you could hear the hum. There’s stagnant water down Anderson Creek way. A whole helluva lot more mosquitoes this summer.”
“How do I get into this door?” Penelope asked, looking carefully at the blueprints.
“You’re going to have to crawl into the ventilation system,” John said. “Then you’re going to have to push into a wall that looks like it’s covered with cement. But it’s actually just camouflaged for idiots to pass on by. Then there’s a doorway that’s going to have a big-ass hasp lock on it that you’ll have to crack open.”
Penelope smiled. “Sometimes I love my line of work.”
*
After Andrea insisted on feeding the younger woman, Penelope left the Rife/Blanchett Ranch after dark. She didn’t like it, but she needed the time to get into the missile complex. Both John and Andrea expressed concern over her timing, but she shook her head impatiently. “My mother is down there with them,” she said by way of explanation. “And if you hadn’t seen them yourselves, then you wouldn’t be helping me.”
John frowned. “They’ve been here for years, so why all of this now?”
“It’s the man who says he’s the new owner,” Penelope said. “His name is Anthony Littlesoldier. He thinks he’s going to end the world, and this missile silo is the place to do it.”
Both husband and wife appeared confused. Finally, John said, “Because of the meteor crater that was there?” He turned to his wife and said, “Andrea, I told you that place was full of haunts. Hell, you saw those red-eyed critters just as plain as I did, and I don’t recollect you losing a whole lot of sleep over it.”
Andrea shrugged. “They don’t come into my bedroom at night, and I don’t use my Winchester on them. Not much I can do about them over at the missile silo, now can I?”
“That and a whole lot of supposition,” Penelope said. “I know what this sounds like, but you have to believe that this Anthony has the power to ‘do’ things I’ve never even conceived of before. And I stumbled on this mess like the fool I was.” She felt a little guilty at not telling the Rifes that four Dallas area children were probably down in the silo with her mother as well, but the sheriff’s department’s invasion of the site wouldn’t get them the result they desired.
John patted Penelope awkwardly on her back. From the look on his face he didn’t think she’d be rescuing her mother or even that he’d see her again. “God speed, Penelope Quick. Just remember if I don’t hear from you before tomorrow evening, I’m calling the sheriff.”
Penelope’s face was somber. “Just remember to tell him not to go into the silo after dark.”
And with that, she left, and not another word was spoken among the three of them.
*
Penelope parked the Wrangler in a low-slung valley between two gradual ridges. In a backpack, she had a compass, a little bottle of liquid nitrogen, her lock picks, three flashlights with fresh batteries, a Taser, and a Glock 18 that Ray had grudgingly given her for half price. She loaded up and made sure everything was accessible. Dressed in black as if she were going on a creep, she supposed she was doing exactly that, except that she wasn’t expecting to steal anything. However, she planned on freeing her mother and four children if she could and cheerfully pitching a gigantic monkey wrench into Anthony’s works.
A faltering thought crossed her mind. If she had to put a bullet into Anthony’s head to stop this madness, then that was what she was going to do. Then she would follow up by blowing holes in the seatco and every shadow person she could find. If the Teflon-covered bullets that she had gotten from Ray didn’t do the trick, then she would find something that would.
Penelope surveyed the area slowly and decided that the use of the nearly full moon’s light above had enabled her access without detection. She was approximately a half mile away from the missile silo site and would be walking the remainder of the way to the air vent shaft that was her objective. The shaft was far enough away from the silo entrance not to be obvious, and she could make a little noise without discovery.
Leaving the keys in the Wrangler, Penelope decided not to risk exposure that way. She had enough to carry and any extra might be telling. The night was warm and still. Not even a soft, balmy breeze rustled through the sagebrush and to camouflage the motionlessness of the evening. There wasn’t the sound of crickets rubbing their legs together or a hunting owl hooting or even a roaming coyote howling at the moon in support of her ongoing quest. It was as if all living things had been chased away from this place or warned not to be present.
She set off carefully, keeping to the shadows of low-slung ridges and curving around the long berms that had been left by the Air Force decades before. Penelope slid along like the professional thief she pretended to be half the time.
The vent was not large, and it was hidden behind sage and brush. At some point in time, it had been used as a garbage dump for scrap metal and wood.
Upon the exit of the Air Force, the Gumbrell family hadn’t paid much attention to the silo and supposedly used the Launch Control Center as an attic. John had said there was enough miscellaneous property in there to sink a battleship from four generations of ranchers. They hadn’t done much with the errant Atlas property at all. Reputedly George stopped his cattle grazing on the twenty acres when he had found too many of his cattle dead for unknown reasons. Decomposition was swift in the hot Texas air, and he had never come across freshly dead animals. Instead George had fenced the area off in the late seventies and posted an abundance of signs to prevent sightseers from trespassing.
The vent was round with a rusting cover. Penelope worked the cap off and settled it quietly on the ground. The vent was small enough to admit a person of average weight. However, it deterred anyone much bigger than Penelope’s size. She doubted that Will Littlesoldier could have fit into the hole, and she suddenly thought guiltily about Will.
Before she had left the hospital, she had kissed him gently on the forehead and told him not to worry. He had come out of surgery with an extra few pieces of metal that would certainly get him noticed at any security checkpoint. Will had opened his eyes and looked at her censoriously. Only half alert he’d muttered, “Don’t go out there alone.”
A loose grip had encircled her wrist, lightly tugging at her. An electric charge surged between the two of them. Whatever it was connected the
m in a way that she had never experienced before. It made her nervous and all the more serious about protecting him.
Penelope had stared down at him. She had been willing to taser Will to make sure he didn’t accompany her and then she wondered if she were making a mistake. He had closed his eyes and emitted a soft snore before she could answer him. His fingers had dropped away from her wrist, and she had slipped out.
Like a thief.
Penelope wiggled her way into the vent and was sincerely sorry that she wouldn’t be able to put the cap back on. However, the brush was heavy, and she hoped that it wouldn’t be immediately noticed. The Indiglo feature on her watch showed the time to be after 10 PM. She had twenty-six hours to find her mother and the children and get them out of this hell. From what John told her there could be obstacles in the maintenance tunnel that had occurred as a result of decades of neglect.
Penelope dropped into the main air shaft and winced at the noise she caused. The air was dank and musty, moving sluggishly into the vent which was covered with a heavy, rust-covered grate. On the cement block wall, five feet to one side, there was a sign about Air Force maintenance procedures. It was corroded with rust and about to detach itself from the wall. The words were barely legible. She touched the sign. It fell off with a great clatter.
Aiming her foot, Penelope kicked the wall behind the sign and was gratified to see it crumble away like a piece of dried-out cookie being crushed in one’s hand. Using one of her three flashlights, she ascertained that no boogeyman was waiting for her and crawled through into darkness so heavy it could have been weighed on a scale.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Thursday, July 17th - Friday, July 18th
Boarding school (slang, origin unknown, probably 19th century English) - prison.
The hidden escape route was nothing more than a constricted segment of stairs that descended into utter blackness, losing itself as it turned an abrupt corner. It was barely wide enough for Penelope’s small frame, and she couldn’t help but wonder how some of the larger men who had worked in this facility so long before, would have been able to use it.
Shadow People Page 32
