Town at the Edge of Darkness

by Brett Battles

  “Tell me, how exactly do you plan on getting to the other side without being sliced up?”

  Ricky grinned and motioned for Dylan to remove the backpack. From inside, he pulled out a folded piece of thick canvas and a looped bundle of climbing rope.

  “Leave the bag and follow me,” he said.

  He led Dylan to the fence, where he grabbed the nearest pole and gave it a gentle shake. It swayed about an inch in either direction. He moved to the next pole and tested it. This one had barely any give to it.

  Together they unfolded the canvas, stopping when they had a double-thick sheet ten feet long and four feet wide. Using the unwavering pole as the center point, they worked one end of the sheet over the top of the razor wire until they had approximately equal sections of canvas hanging down each side.

  Ricky created a loop in the middle of the rope, and gestured for Dylan to give him a boost up. Dylan raised Ricky high enough for him to scrunch a small section of the canvas down over the top of the pole. Ricky then placed the loop around it and pulled the knot tight. Back on the ground, he threw one half of the rope onto the other side, and used the other half to pull himself up and over the fence.

  Dylan followed with a bit more reluctance, but was relieved when the canvas proved to be an adequate barrier to the razor wire.

  Once he’d joined Ricky, they snuck toward the trailer.

  Unlike the other side of the mobile office, the back had only one visible source of light, leaking from a high, narrow window that showed no sign of anyone looking out. Dylan and Ricky eased up to the side of the building and listened. Faint noises from a TV seeped through the thin wall. No live voices, though, or sounds of movement.

  Again, Dylan created a hand cradle and lifted Ricky to the window. Ricky remained there, peeking inside, for nearly ten seconds before signaling he was done. Back on the ground, Ricky led Dylan several dozen feet away from the trailer.

  “One guard,” he whispered. “Looks like he’s asleep.”

  “That’s a problem.”

  Ricky smirked. “He’ll have to do his rounds at some point.”

  “We just wait?”

  Ricky patted Dylan on the cheek. “That’s what I like about you. You’re smarter than you look.”

  Twenty-three minutes later, the faint beep-beep-beep of an alarm came from inside the trailer. Several seconds after that, the building groaned with movement. Nearly a minute later, a toilet flushed, more movement, and finally the squeak from one of the doors on the other side opening.

  Ricky signaled for Dylan to stay put and moved over to the side of the building facing the fence. When he heard the whine of the electric golf cart moving, he chanced a peek around the front corner. The cart rolled across the parking area, toward the road that paralleled the fence. Though the angle prevented Ricky from seeing the driver’s face, the size of the guard and the hairstyle matched that of the man he’d seen sleeping inside the trailer.

  He waved for Dylan to join him.

  “At the speed he’s going,” Ricky said, “it’ll take him at least fifteen minutes to get all the way around to a spot where he could possibly see the tarp. If he makes any stops, it’ll be even longer. You stay here and keep an eye on him. I’m going to go in and check around. Let me know when he’s getting close.”

  “And how am I supposed to do that without comm gear?”

  “Hey, I didn’t have access to it. You guys have that stuff. Not me.”

  “And if we’d brought my car, we would have had it with us.”

  Ricky’s eyes narrowed. “You’ll just have to make do with the old-fashioned method. Two raps on the side and I’ll get the message.”

  He headed around the corner and went straight to the closest of the two doors. Locked, of course. The second door was locked, too.

  Great. A guard who actually cares about his job.

  Using the scanner app on his phone, Ricky checked for an alarm. There was a system in place but it was currently inactivated. He revised his earlier thought. Apparently the guard’s concerns about his job went only so far. Ricky picked the lock and slipped inside.

  A long, waist-high counter ran across the back of the room, covered with stacks of blueprints and thick three-ring binders. A table and several chairs occupied the left end of the trailer. The guard had been sitting there, the small TV he’d been watching dark now. A desk sat at the other end of the room, on it a couple of stacks of paperwork, a telephone, and a computer.

  If I were Patterson, what would interest me? The binders and blueprints?

  He pulled out a random binder and flipped through the pages. Tech specs and drawings of hardware that Ricky couldn’t identify. This could very well be exactly what the woman had come for, but he had no way of knowing that. He shot a few pictures just in case, and returned the binder to its place.

  For a second or two, he considered taking random pictures of items in the other binders, but that would take forever so he dismissed the thought.

  He looked around the room, his gaze stopping when it reached the computer. Were there files on it that couldn’t be found somewhere else? That seemed inefficient, but not out of the realm of possibility.

  He moved behind the desk and nudged the mouse. The screen came to life, asking for a password.

  Dammit.

  He stared at the screen and clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. He could try to break in. He wasn’t the best at hacking, but he’d done his fair share. No way to know, though, how long it would take, or if he’d succeed.

  He settled on taking a picture of the serial number on the back of the tower, and on the modem it was plugged into, and sent the shots to Rosario. Hopefully she or Shinji could hack in remotely.

  He turned his attention back to the room.

  An alert popped up on a monitor at the Scolareon security office, located on the second floor of the company’s manufacturing building in Bradbury. The officer on duty clicked the box to obtain more details.

  The alarm had been triggered at an offsite facility, specifically the company’s under-construction solar farm north of town.

  The officer brought up the appropriate phone number.

  The line rang three times before it was answered. “Eldridge.”

  “John, it’s Gary at the office. Did you just try to use the computer?” The only computer the guards were allowed to touch was the one in the guard shack down the road.

  “Computer? I’m on rounds. I’m not even in the building.”

  “Please tell me you don’t have someone there waiting for you.” That was also a no-no, but a rule that had been broken more than once.

  “Of course not. Are you telling me someone tried to log in?”

  “No. Just screen activation.” Rider hit a key on his computer. “Looks like it’s gone dark again.”

  “Is that all? Probably just a glitch.”

  “Probably. But protocol says you need to go back and check.”

  Eldridge groaned. “Fine. I’ll call you back when I’m done.”

  Dylan’s gaze never left the cart as it slowly moved farther and farther away. While Ricky might have been a good hunter, Dylan knew vehicles, and based on the cart’s current speed, the entire trip would take closer to twenty minutes than fifteen.

  But hey, the more time the—

  The cart’s brake lights flashed. It sat motionless for a moment, and then made a Y-turn and headed back Dylan and Ricky’s way.

  “Shite.”

  He rapped twice on the side of the trailer, and after a few seconds, rapped again to make sure Ricky took him seriously. When he heard the door open, he stuck his head around the corner and saw Ricky slip out and give Dylan a what’s-going-on look. Dylan nodded toward the returning cart. That got Ricky moving in a hurry.

  “What the hell happened?” Ricky whispered once he’d joined Dylan around the corner.

  “You’re asking me? I haven’t budged from this spot. You were the one doing all the moving around.”


  Ricky grimaced. “Let’s go.”

  They ran to the tarp. Dylan went first. Ricky then climbed up and stopped at the top, a leg dangling on each side. He tugged at the knot holding the rope in place, but it didn’t budge.

  “Come on, you son of bitch,” he muttered.

  Dylan moved down the chain-link until the trailer no longer hid the cart’s headlights. The vehicle was pulling up in front of the building. If luck was on their side, the guard would go straight into the building and not come out again until Dylan and Ricky had made it safely to the woods.

  He hurried back to Ricky. “He just got there.”

  Ricky cursed again.

  “Ricky, we’ve got to go.”

  “I’m not going to—”

  Suddenly the knot slipped open and the loop popped off the top. Ricky, who’d been using his full weight to leverage the rope free, fell backward toward the forest side of the fence.

  Dylan tried to catch him, but only succeeded in slowing Ricky enough so that the hunter hit the ground with a loud bump rather than a thundering crash.

  Eldridge parked the cart near the trailer’s east door and climbed out. He had no doubt the computer had sent a false alert. He’d just left the trailer and there hadn’t been enough time for anyone to get inside.

  As he slipped his key into the lock, however, he heard a dull thud coming from somewhere beyond the building.

  He tensed and cautiously moved to the end of the trailer. Slowly, he stepped out so he could see the area behind the office.

  The floodlight he’d been standing under screwed with his night vision, so everything appeared as dark shadows. He snapped up his flashlight, switched it on, and swung the beam back and forth. No movement, and everything as it should be.

  He listened, hoping to pick up more sound, but the night was quiet.

  Must have been a branch. Or a pinecone.

  He moved the flashlight around for one last pass.

  “What the hell?”

  At the farthest reaches of the beam, he noticed something odd along the top of the fence. He took several steps toward it.

  Trash? Kicked up by the wind? Maybe, but there hadn’t been much of a wind that night.

  A few more steps, and he could see the item was a cloth of some kind. Cloth draped evenly over both sides. What were the chances a gust of wind had done that?

  Slim to none.

  He moved the beam through the area near the fence on his side, but nothing was there. As he started to swing the light through the chain-link to the other side, his radio came to life.

  Crouching next to the fallen Ricky, Dylan whispered, “Don’t move.”

  The guard’s shadow stood beside the trailer for a moment, before it began walking toward them, flashlight in hand.

  “Coming this way,” Dylan whispered.

  “What do we do?” Ricky whispered back, not in the position to see anything.

  Dylan didn’t have a good answer. If they moved now, the guard would notice them for sure. If they stayed and the guard kept coming, they’d soon be in range of the man’s flashlight.

  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

  Dylan patted the air, indicating they should stay for now, and hoped the guard would stop.

  Come on, buddy. Turn around. Just—

  The light touched the tarp and stopped on it.

  Oh, crap.

  The guard studied the tarp for a moment, and then moved his light to his right. Dylan tensed, ready to run if the light swung back in their direction. Suddenly, a voice crackled from a radio on the guard’s belt.

  “John, come in.”

  The guard retrieved the device. “What is it?”

  “Base just called me. Said you were checking on an alarm? They want to know what you found.”

  “Still checking.”

  “What the hell are they talking about? I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Computer alarm.”

  “Computer? Ah, Jesus. You weren’t trying to log on, were you?”

  “No, I wasn’t trying to log on,” the guard said defensively. “I’m not that stupid. I wasn’t even there. But…there is something weird here.”

  “What do you mean, weird?”

  “There’s a blanket or something hanging over the top of the fence, behind the trailer.” The guard covered the remaining distance to the spot and disappeared behind the tarp. “Feels like canvas.”

  “How did it get there?”

  “Not sure. I was thinking the wind but this thing’s pretty heavy. Hold on.” The guard leaned around the end of the tarp and pointed his flashlight through the fence.

  The beam wasn’t aimed directly at Dylan and Ricky, but it was close enough to reveal they weren’t part of the landscape.

  “Oh, shit!” the guard yelled. “There’s someone here! There’s someone here!”

  Dylan and Ricky jumped to their feet and sprinted into the woods, Ricky stopping only long enough to grab their backpack.

  The guard, still shouting into his radio, said, “They’re in the woods west of the trailer!”

  Dylan had no plan in mind other than to get away. He ran between trees, on a path that took him straight out from where they had been. But within the first thirty yards, Ricky’s hand clamped down on his shoulder, jerking him to a stop.

  “This way,” the hunter whispered, nodding in a direction that would take them on a diagonal toward the gate in the fence surrounding the construction site.

  “Are you daft? They’ll be coming from that direction.”

  “Exactly.”

  Dylan waited for more, but instead of elaborating, Ricky ran off.

  “Ah, for the love of God,” Dylan muttered. He took a deep breath and raced after him.

  Eldridge kept his flashlight fixed on the two trespassers until they disappeared into the forest. He relayed the information to his night watch partner, Samson, stationed out at the guardhouse along the entrance road, and told him to cut them off. Eldridge then hurried back to the golf cart and drove it to the main gate, pushing the electric motor as fast as it could go.

  At the entrance, he entered his code into the control box a few feet from the fence. The instant the gate rolled open wide enough, he sprinted into the forest.

  Dylan nearly ran into Ricky when the hunter stopped abruptly. Ricky grabbed Dylan’s arm and moved to the left behind some brush, where they crouched down.

  No more than three seconds passed before Dylan heard someone running in their direction. Closer and closer the steps came, until the person shot past right on the other side of the bushes. Dylan glimpsed a guard racing away. When the man disappeared, Dylan and Ricky continued in the direction they’d been headed.

  Ricky’s instincts had been dead on. The guards thought the intruders had gone in the other direction, and now that Ricky and Dylan were behind the guards, they’d be almost impossible to find.

  They followed the landscape down a dip and up a shallow rise before reaching the entrance road.

  Ricky leaned close and whispered, “We’ll follow this. It’ll be faster.”

  They hurried down the road, sticking to the left side where it would be easy to meld into the forest if need be. Another bend brought the guardhouse in sight. They crouched and slowed but did not stop.

  Light bled from the open door of the shack, reflecting off the wooden gate blocking the way. Parked on the right edge of the road, directly behind the hut, was another golf cart.

  Ricky crept up to the guardhouse and peeked in. He rose and waved Dylan over. The shack was empty.

  They ducked under the gate and continued toward the main road. Less than a minute later, they heard a sharp voice behind them, like a curse. Dylan looked over his shoulder and spotted the dim glow of a moving light deep among the trees. His guess was that the guards were a hundred yards away, probably more.

  As they neared the next curve in the road, Ricky stopped, his gaze locked on something on the ground.

  “What are you doing?
” Dylan asked. “We need to keep going.”

  “Look.” Ricky pointed at the edge of the road, where two tire tracks had crushed the dirt at the edge and traveled straight into the woods.

  “So what?”

  “And there.” Ricky jogged over to a tree at the side of the road, a few yards back.

  Dylan looked down the road for the lights he’d seen before, but all was dark. If he and Ricky didn’t get moving, though, the guards would catch up soon enough.

  He hurried over to the tree to remind Ricky they needed to get out of there, but he noticed the gouge in the trunk a few feet above the ground. It had been made by something big, and not too long ago. Ricky picked something off the ground.

  “That Prius—it was blue, right?” he asked.

  “Prius?” It took Dylan a moment to realize Ricky was talking about Patterson’s car. “Um, yeah, blue.”

  Ricky turned the item he’d found and held it up for Dylan to see. “That look blue to you?”

  The object was about two by one-inch wide and had broken off a larger piece.

  “It’s night, Ricky. It could be green for all I know.”

  “I’ll bet you breakfast it’s blue.”

  “Okay. Sure. It’s blue. We really need to keep moving.”

  “Just a moment.”

  “We don’t have a—”

  Rising, Ricky shushed him and hurried to another tree. It, too, had been hit. This tree led to another one, deeper in the woods, and then another, and finally to a pine that had been uprooted and was now leaning at an unnatural angle.

  Ricky bent down and brushed away the top layer of needles in front of it. “Check it out.”

  Under the top layer were two tire grooves. Dylan saw that the needles covering the area looked as though they had been brushed into place, instead of having fallen naturally.

  “Whatever hit this,” Dylan whispered, “didn’t drive away.” The vehicle would have needed to be a tank to survive the collision.

  A glint of light off to their right. They both turned to it. A flashlight beam swept in an arc before disappearing behind trees. The guard was getting closer.