“Look at this dude... hell, to be him, huh?” Jonesy said to no one in particular.
“You got that. I'm just a Null,” a disgruntled John said.
“At least you're something, you ingrate,” Jonesy replied.
“Hey, look at this.” I pointed to a spot behind the guy lifting the car off the person.
We put our heads together, and saw a small boy in the background with big eyes, watching the rescue of... I think his brother, from under the car. But, he had one finger on the bumper.
“Is that kid doing it or the guy in the cape?”
That was the $64,000,000 question.
John studied it. “Hold on!” He leapt up and ran out of the room. In the distance I heard voices.
“What's he doing?” I asked Jonesy.
“I don't know,” he shrugged.
John rushed back in with a funny looking thing with a black plastic stem and a round piece of glass on the top.
“What's that?”
“It's my mom's magnifying glass,” Jonesy said.
“This will do the trick!” John said.
We all bent forward again, the high resolution in the reader giving a sharper image as the convex shaped glass flowed over the top, expanding and defining.
“Hell yeah!” Jonesy punched air.
“Jonesy! Language!” Helen yelled a reprimand.
“Sorry mom!” Jonesy yelled back.
Jonesy repeated quietly, “Hell yeah!”
John and I smiled.
“Okay, so the kid is holding up part of the car? So what, it's a comic,” I said.
“That's where you're wrong,” John replied with gravity.
I looked a question at him.
“You remember Alex?” John asked.
“The bad piano player?”
“Yeah,” he waved that opinion away impatiently. “He told me that there were hidden messages in the comics. That if we looked closely, we could find things in the images, the artwork, that when strung together means something.
“Are you shitting me?”
“No, would I?” John asked.
We both looked at Jonesy.
“What?” he asked, oblivious.
We shook our heads. John wouldn’t make it up, too weird.
“Alright, so what does it mean?” I asked.
“Well, that's what we've been trying to decipher with just this months' worth of comics.”
“What does Alex say it means?”
“He thinks there are allies of the paranormals that have been shut down by the government and there's subtle messages in the comics that talk about what is going on, what they're doing. Maybe even where they might be located.”
“And... Alex got this all from, what? He pulled it out of his ass?” Jonesy asked.
I had a visual of Alex, who was such a nerd it hurt me to look at him, but he was truly smart. Maybe there was something to this.
Jonesy turned off his DR. “That's for when we have more time. I have a plan.”
Oh joy.
John asked, “What now? I thought we were going to talk about the comic messages?”
“Later. Besides, you've already agreed to this,” Jonesy said.
“What?” I asked, impatient.
“Let's figure out the hideaway. While there's no chicks around to ruin it,” Jonesy answered.
“Jade wouldn't ruin it,” I defended.
“She wouldn't mean to but, she still distracts you. She's like the 'shiny thing'. She moves and you follow.”
I really couldn't argue with that. I looked at John for support.
John just shook his head. “He's right Caleb, you're kinda gone on her.”
“I'm here tonight though, aren't I?” I asked, indignant.
“Yeah, but we're not getting together as much as we were. It's okay, I'm just sayin'.”
“Okay. I want to find a place to have a safe zone. Somewhere we can go if the government gets wind of me,” I said.
“That's what I'm talkin' about, Caleb,” Jonesy said like, duh.
I still felt uncomfortable doing the zombie slave labor.
“Come on Caleb, we need them,” Jonesy said, seeing my face.
“Yeah, I have been thinking of a way for us to use the zombies and get them back without being noticed,” John said.
I held up my hand. “Let's just wait and see if we even need to use them. Maybe we'll find a really cool place in the old dump and it will be perfect, without...”
“Improvements,” John supplied.
“Right.”
“Let's go tonight, right now,” Jonesy said.
“I gotta have some food first,” John said.
Right on cue, my stomach did a huge rumble.
“That's a sign,” Jonesy said.
We walked out to the kitchen and plopped down in front of a huge thing that my parents called a breakfast bar. The Js and I pulled out the stools. Jonesy's mom poured us out three pops, Big Red. Helen believed sugar was a food group, that made me happy on a deep level.
She put a plate in front of each of us with four slices. My mom's pizza was demolished during round one. Jonesy and I were okay after that but John had to have two more. Helen said she still had a whole pizza left.
“I don't wanna walk, Caleb,” Jonesy said through a mound of food crammed into one side of his mouth.
“Listen, mister, don't talk with your mouth full,” Helen said.
“Sorry, mom,” Jonesy said, and smiled, the pizza guts showing through his teeth. Helen shook her head and started a load of dishes.
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because, I think it will be fun to just watch you ride on that old bike of yours, I need a laugh.”
John smiled.
Helen said, “Jonesy, that is a perfectly adequate bike.”
“Mom, have you looked at it? Really looked at it? It's pathetic. It's a one-speed.”
“Those are classic instruments for the development of large motor skills,” she elaborated.
“Huh?” Jonesy asked.
“Mrs. Jones is talking about your butt,” John said.
It was Helen's turn to grin.
“Let me explain. There are no gears, right?”
“Right,” Jonesy agreed.
“So, it forces you to use the booty gear.”
“Precisely, John, and I thank you for clarifying,” Helen replied.
“You're just not gonna admit that it's not as cool as my Raleigh Scout, mom,” Jonesy stated.
“Not on your life, big-for-your-britches.”
John and I barked out an appreciative laugh. The DNA train wasn't far from the track with his smart-ass behavior.
Jonesy glowered at his mom but she didn't even flinch; tough-as-nails, loved it.
We grabbed our bikes, my tires the monsters of the group and were on our way. The old, abandoned dump was really close to Scenic Hill Cemetery so we parked our bikes there and walked over. It wouldn't be good for some observant adult to see a bunch of kids' bikes loitering in front of a dump.
We looked up at the sign, “Kent Refuse, Authorized Personnel Only, Trespassing Prohibited, Hours of Operation: Mon-Fri: 10:00-4:00. Then, over the top of that was the haphazard lettering, Closed. Our gaze traveled to the top of the chain link fence where barbed wire swirled lazily in a spiral. That would take some doing.
I turned to John. “What do ya think...”
He pulled out two pair of gloves.
Jonesy's eyebrows shot up. “Great! Good thinking,Terran!”
John, always prepared.
“You first,” I said to Jonesy.
Jonesy grunted, threw on the gloves and climbed. Fine muscles bunched and moved in his forearms as he finessed his way up the links, John keeping an eye on the road for adults.
“Hurry,” John said.
“I am. Can it!”
Finally, Jonesy got to the top and pushing down the barbed wire with one hand, straddled it in preparation for swinging his leg over to the othe
r side.
“Hey!” I yelled.
“What? Kinda busy, ya moron.”
“Why don't you stay awhile?”
“Shut up Caleb, it's your turn next,” Jonesy said, giving a nervous look at his balls, millimeters above the barbs.
Jonesy carefully swept his left leg over, securing a foothold on the opposite side. He removed one glove at a time with his teeth, throwing them one-handed over the top of the fence for John and I.
I struggled the gloves on while Jonesy climbed down the other side. I got them on and stood facing Jonesy. Jonesy smiled and did an elaborate middle finger. John laughed.
“Have fun with that, Hart.”
A knot of anxiety was like a ball in my stomach. I was gonna do this.
I was definitely not scared of heights.
I took a deep breath and started to climb. It was pretty easy until I was just about to the top and my arms started to shake. Jonesy hadn't mentioned that part. Maybe it hadn't made him tired. He was shorter, but muscular.
I used the same tramp-down-the-barbed wire technique as Jonesy, hovering precariously over the top in complete terror that my arm strength would give way just at that moment. But the threat of a testicle free life kept me stable. Swinging the other leg over the top, I hung there at the top of the other side, catching my breath.
“Somebody needs to do some push-ups!” Jonesy sang.
Jerk.
I climbed down and stood by Jonesy on the right side of the fence.
“I do push-ups.”
Jonesy grunted, “Maybe do some more.”
John was still staring at the road.
“Let's get going,” Jonesy said through the fence.
John sighed, looking one more time at the locked gate. “Just a sec,” he said, jogging over to the gate.
“It's locked John, you're gonna have to climb,” Jonesy called out smugly.
John stood staring at the gate, which was a huge chain link affair with a padlock the size of my fist.
“It's got a numbered entry,” John called.
Jonesy shrugged, so?
“It's pre-pulse,” I explained.
“Whatever. John, just climb, you're wasting time.”
John started to spin the numbers on the lock, jerking it experimentally. Finally, after a minute of messing around with it and Jonesy grumbling, it opened, like magic.
John looked over at us and grinned triumphantly. “I guess I'll just open the gate, and walk in,” he said.
Oh brother.
And he did; walking right in and right over to us.
Jonesy had his hands on his hips. “What-the-hell, Terran? Why didn't you try that from the start?”
“I didn't think about it until it was my turn to climb,” John tapped his head and continued, “Work smarter, not harder.”
Nice.
“Okay, smart-ass, go close the gate so adults don't check it out.”
John sauntered over to the gate, carefully arranging the lock so it would appear locked.
He came back over and we started to search for the perfect spot.
The dump was an interesting place. I was thinking it was gonna smell trashy. There was some of that, but the acute trash smell was long-gone. The refuse station had been closed since I was little back when recycling became mandatory, with trash penalties and stuff. There just weren't that many dumps in service anymore.
There was a butt-load of tires and old cars and the appliances! It was insane!
Jonesy was thrilled with everything, touching and opening all of it.
John and I let Jonesy explore, while we stayed on a semi-clear path that meandered and wound through huge hills of broken and beaten cars. Old appliances lined the “road” on either side.
He looked inside a huge, commercial style freezer. “Hold on a sec... I've got an idea.”
“What?” I asked.
“I think... that if these cars,” he looked up from our vantage point of being at the base of the “hill” of cars, “weren't compressed all the way, we may be able to make a 'doorway',” he made a large rectangular outline with his fingers of a doorway, “using one of these old fridges, kick the back out and find some space behind it that we can use.”
He folded his arms across his chest and let me think it through. I looked over at the long line of appliances. Maybe one didn't even have a back anymore? I slowly nodded.
“Good, huh?”
“Yeah, let's get the Jonester over here and lay it on him.”
“Jonesy,” I yelled.
“What?!” came the muffled reply.
I turned to John. “Where is he?”
John shrugged.
Suddenly, a head popped out of an old car.
“Come on, stop dickin' around and get over here.”
Jonesy shot his leg out and booted the car door open, its protesting creak piercing the quiet with a squealing groan.
John cringed at Jonesy's subtlety.
Jonesy trotted over and rubbed a hand over his face, covering it with grime. I looked closer. It was like grease, great.
“You've got grease on your face now,” John said.
“I do? Oh well, whatever. I've got soap at home.”
I told Jonesy the plan.
“Hot damn! What are we waiting for? Let's tear these babies open!”
We separated, searching each one. Finally, there was an ugly pink fridge with a clear handle, that looked to have a car emblem embedded in the handle. Weird.
John looked critically at it, circling around the thirty percent that showed.
“Good size,” he stroked the top that he could barely reach. It was a behemoth, bigger than some of the fancy fridges that were in restaurants. John whistled at Jonesy and he walked over from inspecting an avocado-colored beauty.
John slowly opened the fridge; it was deep, probably two feet plus. A perimeter of internal rust edged the interior all along the back. Rust-like lace spread out from the corners in a spider web of burnt orange. Jonesy stepped forward and tore out the two shelves that hung cattywampus inside, making them sail like Frisbees over John's head.
“Hey! Watch it,” John said, ducking.
“Hold your shorts, Terran, you'll live.”
“Kick out the back Jonesy,” I said.
He turned his head and looked at me. “Duh.”
Jonesy did a super graceful dance kick where he sorta hops, then jumps, bending his knee and swinging it out at the same time. A ripple appeared where his foot had struck, the back buckling.
Jonesy did another strike and the buckle widened from top to bottom.
“Come on Jonesy, I thought you were all-that-is-boy,” John antagonized.
“I,” kick, thunk, whack, “am!” The whole back gave, splitting open into the dark.
John, of the ever-prepared, whipped out his LED light, where a dim spiral wove a murky path through the gloom.
“Come on, let's go.”
And in we went.
There was only enough room to crawl, it was dusty and we were a sneezing, wheezing mess. I crawled about another eight feet, turning my head. “This isn't going to work.”
John lit a match. “If there isn't enough oxygen, this match won't stay lit.”
We all stared at the light of the match, wavering and uncertain, but burning bright, like a beacon.
“Okay so what now?” Jonesy asked.
“There's enough oxygen this far back that I think this tunnel here might open up into a bigger space. Keep moving.”
Jonesy and I crawled forward on our hands and knees, for about three more minutes. I was losing track of how long it had been when it narrowed. I belly crawled and twisted through the last bit and...it opened up enough for me to stand up, the LED light gripped firmly between my teeth. Slowly, I took it out and looked around. It was big... real big.
John said, “Wow.”
That about covered it. Everywhere around us were cars that were compacted in huge stacks. Several were precariously perched
above our heads, acting like a ceiling. I wasn't worried, I figured they'd been like that for a decade and they weren't ever gonna come down.
“Come on morons, stop gawking and haul me out of here!”
John and I turned around, and sure enough, Jonesy was wedged in the part of the “tunnel” that had been a real twister to get out of. John barked out a laugh that made Jonesy do a death glare.
“I like it,” John said.
“We can't get out if he's in the way, smart one,” I said.
John sighed. “You're right, but it was fun while it lasted.”
We each pulled one arm, counted to three and jerked him out like an eel out of an oil can.
Jonesy grabbed his knees and stood up, brushing the dirt off his jeans.
“Thanks for the help, guys,” Jonesy delivered sarcastically.
He looked around appreciatively. “This is just the guy-cave we had in mind.”
John took out another LED light and turned it on to join mine.
“Where are you getting all the lights,” Jonesy asked. “And how did you know the combo for the lock?”
“Yeah, what he said.”
“I read some documentary about pre-pulse security. They said sometimes at commercial sites the numbered addresses were used backwards, or the last for digits of the phone number.”
“You mean, ding-a-ling?”
“Yeah, Jonesy, actual non-pulse phones,” John said.
“Why is this here?” I asked, indicating the big bubble room of forgotten cars.
“It's like I was hoping. There would be a pocket of space that was trapped, something they missed,” John said.
“The workers missed?” Jonesy asked.
“Yeah. Just think of that job; all day long smashing cars, trying to remember where you did it last. It'd be a bitch to keep track of, thinking you're at the bottom. When, really, you missed a spot.”
“How would you know?” Jonesy asked.
“I didn't, I guessed. When Caleb wanted to do the hideout here I thought it might be a possibility.”
“How do the girls get back here?” I asked.
“Girls!”
“Come off it Jonesy, Jade, Sophie and Tiff are included.”
“There's Bry and maybe Alex too.”
Huh, we were getting a group I told them.
“We can do it,” John said.
“Does your mom still have that camping gear?” John asked Jonesy.
Death Whispers (Death Series, Book 1) Page 26
