by Jeff Strand
“Been a while, professor,” the man said. He wore a charcoal polyester suit, the creases betraying how long it had been since he had last changed it. His pale blue tie hung loosely around his neck. A tuft of curly hair peeked out over the unbuttoned collar of his shirt.
Gabriel rose so quickly he knocked his notes to the floor and banged his hip in his hurry to get out from behind the desk. He proffered his hand and the two men shook abruptly. There were so many thoughts racing through Gabriel’s mind that he couldn’t formulate any of them into words. He could only think of one reason why Brent Cavenaugh would have driven all the way out to Boulder to see him face-to-face. His stomach clenched and he felt the room start to spin. He steadied himself against the edge of the desk and ran his fingers through his shaggy, sandy-blonde hair, slicking it back with the cool sweat beading his forehead.
“Can we sit down?” Cavenaugh asked. He gestured to the twin chairs in front of the desk.
Gabriel nodded and they sat side by side. He felt the heat of Cavenaugh’s hazel eyes upon him, but couldn’t force himself to raise his eyes to match the stockier man’s stare. Cavenaugh was with the Denver Police Department, a detective with the Pattern Crimes Bureau of the Criminal Investigations Division, and had a way of looking through a man rather than at him. While Gabriel had an undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of Denver and a master’s in Cell and Molecular Biology from Colorado State, Cavenaugh had joined the force after earning an associate’s degree in Criminal Justice from Front Range Community College, and what he hadn’t learned in the police academy, he had picked up in a hurry on the streets. The only thing they had in common was the overwhelming sense of loss, the hole in their lives that the past two years hadn’t begun to fill.
Gabriel tried to ask the question out loud, but couldn’t find the strength to voice it.
Did they find the bodies?
“I want to show you something,” Cavenaugh said. He reached under his jacket and produced a manila folder, which he passed to Gabriel. After a moment of expectant silence, Gabriel opened the folder. “Tell me what you see in that first picture.”
It looked like the crater-pocked surface of the moon with a long, segmented mealworm crawling across it.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” Gabriel said. “There’s always at least one student every semester who thinks he can stump me with this. It’s an unclassified extremophile found on a meteorite speculated to have originated on Mars. The closest living microorganism we can find on Earth is a halophile, a species of haloarchaea. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Look at the next picture.”
Gabriel flipped the page and studied the image, which showed five of the microbes on a lattice-like substrate. Some were curled into crescents while others were elongated.
“And the next,” Cavenaugh said.
The following picture had the exact same background, however the microorganisms had assumed different shapes and positions. He noticed a time stamp on the bottom of the image and turned back to the previous page. It had been stamped only one minute prior.
“They’re alive,” Gabriel whispered. “That’s impossible.”
“You aren’t the first to say that.”
Gabriel finally met Cavenaugh’s eyes. The expression on the man’s face was unreadable.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Gabriel asked.
“Those images were taken through an electron microscope on samples of bone prepared from a human femur that was found just outside of Pine Springs.”
Gabriel drew a sharp breath.
“DNA testing confirmed it was Nathan Dillinger’s.”
“Did they find anything else?”
“You mean anything belonging to one of our sisters? No. Just the one bone. No other parts of Nathan Dillinger or the other six.”
“Are they investigating the site where they found it? I mean, if they discovered one bone, then surely—”
“Calm down, Gabriel,” Cavenaugh said. His eyes softened and he placed a hand on Gabriel’s shoulder. “They scoured the National Forest for two straight days and came up with nothing. I would have told you at the time, but I didn’t want to get your hopes up.”
“I don’t understand any of this. How did this microorganism that by all rights shouldn’t even be alive get onto the disembodied femur of one of the people who disappeared with our sisters? Where’s the rest of Nathan, and where is Stephanie?”
Saying her name was a self-inflicted wound.
“I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on that.”
“What do you mean? How the hell would I—?”
“An anonymous tip led us to the mountain lion den where we found the bone. Of course, it didn’t take long to track the call to the man who poached the animal. It was tagged and being tracked after all. It took all of about an hour to place it on his property prior to its death and perform a ballistics match on the bullet, but here’s the interesting part. Mountain lions are nomadic. They tend to move around when food becomes scarce. The Division of Wildlife had been monitoring its movements for more than a year, and twice in that time it passed within five miles of the cabins. The most recent of which was only two weeks ago.”
“You think it came across Nathan’s remains during that time.”
“Stands to reason,” Cavenaugh said. “But here’s the kicker: they performed an autopsy on the mountain lion and found it riddled with those microorganisms. I figure that’s our most substantial link. We’ve had cops scouring the mountain lion’s trail, but haven’t had any luck. I was thinking you might have some stroke of genius that could help us find where these microorganisms can live.”
“I’m sure you already have experts far more qualified than I am.”
“I have a group of scientists poring over microscopes and slides, giddy with the prospect of publishing and naming these little bugs after themselves, and a cold case for which the department can’t spare any more manpower.”
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to help me find my sister,” Cavenaugh said. Fire burned behind in eyes. “And yours.”
November 10th, 2010
Wednesday
Gabriel hung up the phone and leaned back in the chair. His heart was pounding and his palms were damp. He wasn’t sure he was going to be able to go through with this. After nearly a week had passed without word from Cavenaugh, he had begun to think that he might never hear from him again, which had sounded better and better as time had passed. It had taken planting the cross on the peak of Mount Isolation to truly come to grips with the fact that his little sister was dead. Granted, not knowing how she had perished ate him alive inside, but worse was the prospect of learning that she might have suffered. Finding a single disarticulated bone didn’t bode well in that regard. Of course, the authorities had until recently speculated that she was still alive somewhere out there, that she and the others had formed some sort of cult and were now living safely in some apocalyptic compound praying for the Rapture. They apparently believed that there was a fine line between a believer and a zealot, and that anyone who disappeared into the wilderness looking for God had long since crossed it.
But that wasn’t his sister. Not his Stephanie. Hers was not a blind faith, but a carefully orchestrated search for a higher power.
He supposed that was what he had been doing all this time, too. In the years following their parents’ death, they had both embarked upon a quest for answers. He had only been sixteen years old and Stephanie fourteen when the car accident had uprooted them from their stable lives in Hartford, Connecticut and moved them to Denver to live with their maternal grandparents. It wasn’t right for any God to orphan two children on what felt like a sadistic whim. In retrospect, Gabriel understood that their individual searches had diverged long ago. He had thrown himself into a science lab where he worked through a microscope, not necessarily to disprove the notion of God, but to prove that man held power ove
r Him, especially when it came to life and death, while Stephanie had turned her eyes to the heavens.
None of that mattered now. He had promised, if only to himself, that he would never let any harm befall her, and he had failed. Maybe they hadn’t found her body, but deep down, he knew. His little sister was dead.
Gabriel swiped away the tears and rose from the chair. He walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The discomfort in his stomach told him he was hungry, but nothing looked remotely appealing. He finally settled on another bottle of Rolling Rock and returned to the living room of the small apartment, where he sat in front of the desktop computer. For the last six days, he had felt its inexorable pull and had resisted through sheer force of will, but now he knew the time had come.
Cavenaugh had made all of the arrangements, just as he had promised he would. The cabins were rented for two weeks, and four of the others would be meeting them there on Saturday morning. Gabriel had already arranged his leave with the university by cashing in every last one of his accrued vacation days, while secretly hoping he wouldn’t have to use them. The short notice was going to cost him two classes over the summer session, but if he managed to gain some measure of closure, then it would definitely be worth it. Until now, the trip had been something of an abstraction, the kind of plan that never really materialized, but now he was faced with the reality of the situation: in two days he would return to the last place where his sister had been seen alive in hopes of discovering how she had died.
He set aside the beer, which seethed like acid in his gut, and typed in the web address.
After a moment, the home page opened and he stared at the image on the left side of seven smiling men and women, barely out of their teens. Their faces were flushed with the prospect of adventure. Gabriel was certain that was how they would have chosen to be remembered. Stephanie stood in the middle, her blonde hair pulled into a ponytail, her blue eyes like twin sapphires. She was wearing the yellow sweatshirt with the CU buffalo across the front that he had given her three months before on her twenty-third birthday. Had he known that birthday would have been her last, he would have given her something special, something meaningful. The cross she always wore hung over the collar: gold with five diamonds, one in the center and another at each end. She had been so vibrant, so beautiful, the kind of person who naturally became the center of attention whenever she entered a room. To her right stood Jenny Cavenaugh, who had short dark hair and her brother’s stocky build. She had eyes a shade of shamrock green so intense they looked computer-altered. Beside her were Levi Northcutt, who was tall and gangly, and had yet to outgrow his adolescent acne, and Nathan Dillinger, an average-looking guy with a Rockies cap pulled down over his eyes, and both femora still seated firmly in their sockets beneath his dirty jeans. To Stephanie’s left was Grant Farnham, who reminded Gabriel of Peyton Manning. He was discreetly holding his sister’s hand, which confirmed what Gabriel had suspected for several months leading up to their disappearance. Beside Grant were Chase Evans, a short, chubby boy with moppish red hair and a crooked smile, and Deborah MacAuley, a frumpy brunette with thick glasses and a palsy hand she held close to her chest. And rubbing his flank on Stephanie’s shin was her rescued orange tabby, Oscar, named for his frequently rotten disposition. Even he had vanished without a trace, leaving behind his empty food and water bowls, a used litter box, and his traveling crate amidst the collection of clothes, personal effects, and the food none of them had bothered to collect in their hurry to join the supposed cult.
Gabriel felt a rush of anger at the thought and realized he was grinding his teeth. After more than a year of dissociating himself from his emotions, the last six days had broken the floodgates and left him at their mercy. He wanted to scream, cry, lash out, collapse into bed and sleep forever. But he hadn’t opened the website simply to view the photograph. Though he could probably recite the video blogs by heart, he needed to watch them again.
A link on the right side of the home page led him to the “Diary Page,” which listed all of the dates of entry in columns beside the rectangular video screen in the center. The seven had each taken turns. His sister had been first in the rotation. He clicked the first link and Stephanie’s frozen image appeared in the viewer. His heart caught and a lump rose in his throat. With a shaking hand that caused the cursor to tremble on the screen, he clicked the triangular “PLAY” button.
“Well, here we are, Day One,” Stephanie said. She wore the same smile she generally reserved for birthdays and Christmas morning. She was so happy she positively glowed. Her hand moved back and forth in the lower periphery of the image, soliciting a contented purr from her lap. Behind her, the window had been opened on a wall of pines and whatever forest creatures chattered in the canopy. The walls were paneled with wood so coarse it could give you splinters just by looking at it. “We would all like to thank our families for being so supportive of our little adventure. So, thank you.”
Stephanie blew the camera a kiss and there was a chorus of assent from somewhere off-screen.
Gabriel smiled, even as the tears rolled down his cheeks.
“So, as you all know, we’re here in the middle of nowhere searching for proof. Maybe we’ll find it. Maybe we won’t. Either way, it’s going to be an exciting summer that none of us will ever forget. Another year of grad school and we’ll all have our master’s degrees. Some of us will continue on and pursue doctorates, while the rest of us will venture out into the real world and try to make a living in this primarily theoretical discipline. I guess that makes this our final hurrah.
“And now our statement of mission for posterity. We’re here on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains, nearly an hour’s drive from the nearest indoor plumbing, because this is where the scriptures have led us. When we say we’re looking for proof of the existence of God, we understand that no such thing can ever be found. God must be taken on faith. However, what we can find is corroborative evidence to support the verses in the Bible, peripheral proof if you will. Like Porcher Taylor found what we believe to be Noah’s Ark on the top of Mount Ararat. Astronomers have recreated the night skies to validate the presence of the star that led the three wise men to the stable where Jesus was born, and the lineages of the Caesars can be factually dated to correspond with those in the Bible.
“I would like to read a few verses now.
“This is from the Book of Revelation, chapter twelve, verses seven through nine. And there was a war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found anymore in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world; he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
“There’s another from Second Peter, chapter two, verse four: For God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.
“And that’s why we’re right here, right now. We believe that somewhere, hidden in these hills, we will find where the nephilim, the dark angels cast out of heaven with Lucifer, landed on earth, and provide incontrovertible proof that angels do exist. And by inference, we will be one step closer to finding God.”
November 13th, 2010
Saturday
All mythology is rooted in fact.
Those six words returned again and again to the forefront of Gabriel’s mind as he drove westward along the winding highway, higher into the mountains. Throughout its history, mankind has always sought to explain what it doesn’t understand. Wild stories have been fabricated and deities created to rationalize events that are now easily justified. Thunder was caused by Thor’s hammer, lightning by Zeus’s hand. Sickness was the result of angering the spirits and natural disasters were the vengeance of the gods. While Gabriel didn’t subscribe to the Christian notion of God, he couldn’t help but think the same principles applied. How did man c
ome to be? Why, God birthed him from nothing and set him down in the Garden of Eden, of course. Never mind the irrefutable arguments for evolution. The fall of Sodom and Gomorrah? God did it. Scholars claim to have found the Garden and the remains of both cities. If they had actually existed, then what had truly happened there? And if the mythology of the bible were based in fact, then what had his sister and her friends found in these very mountains?
Gabriel was forced to slow his black Dodge Intrepid as the snow, which until now had only come down in fits and starts, began to fall in earnest. The impregnable walls of ponderosa pines, assorted spruces, and bare aspens sparkled with the recent accumulation, while the scrub oak packed between the trunks remained sheltered beneath the canopy. Each bend in the road granted a brief glimpse of the sharp white peaks in the distance over the treetops. The flakes tumbled sideways across the asphalt on the shifting wind, but had fortunately yet to begin to stick.
He cranked up the radio to drown out his thoughts.
The highway descended into a deep valley, at the bottom of which was a wide river so blue it positively radiated a glacial coldness. Its banks were already buried beneath several inches of snow. Gabriel veered from the pavement onto the widened gravel shoulder just before the bridge that crossed the river, and turned right onto an uneven dirt road designated only by the 432 mile-marker post. The forest closed in from both sides to form a claustrophobic trench. Tire tracks marred the dusting of snow ahead. His car rattled over a long washboard stretch before the road evened out again.
County Road 432 wended around the topography of the mountains for twenty-some miles before it appeared to simply peter out on the map. The cabins were just over fourteen miles from the highway. If he pushed the car past twenty-five miles per hour, he would be there in half an hour. Unconsciously, he eased off the gas.
