by Greg Ballan
"Think about it, babe, is this worth dying over and leaving Brianna and me alone?" she asked softly.
Erik was silent for several seconds. He looked up at her, his face calmer. "You guys are right, of course. I guess I got carried away with being the center of attention, the 'Go to guy.' I forgot what was really important. I'll tell Nelson I'm not going back up there. I've done all that I can do. I have my daughter, a new love in my life, and good friends." He looked over at Jeff. "Besides, I'm not that anxious to tangle with those things anyway, I'll let Steve and the boys in blue blast them with their heavy artillery, I've got better things to do."
Shanda sat next to him and enfolded him in a tender embrace. "I know what that took and I'll reward you later," she whispered as she kissed his lips tenderly.
"I apologize, Erik," Jeff began. "I didn't realize you had company. I'll let myself out."
"Jeff!" Erik called out.
The older man turned.
"Thank you," Erik said plainly, but with a deep tone.
"Someone's gotta make sure you keep that head screwed on right," he said, chuckling as he closed the door behind him.
* * *
Several more hours had passed when Erik and Shanda made their way into Madame's. The couple was still all smiles and arm in arm. Jeff assumed the young woman had given him his reward for abandoning the notion of pursuing the creatures.
Erik wordlessly grabbed a busboy cart and started clearing three nearby tables. He looked over at Jeff and nodded as he emptied the dirty dishes on the carousel. Jeff definitely saw a spring in Erik's step that had been missing for quite a long time. Erik walked back over to his booth and sat next to his new girlfriend. Jeff continued to watch the two from his hidden vantage point. They were laughing, holding hands, and staring into each other's eyes, too busy to notice the stares from the young waitress by the cash register.
* * *
Jeff walked over to the counter where Alissa was eyeballing Erik and Shanda. "They make a cute couple, don't you think?" Jeff commented as Alissa broke her gaze.
"I suppose so," she remarked, "but she'll distract him from what he has to do," she concluded mysteriously.
"And what, pray tell, would that be?" Jeff asked, suddenly curious.
Alissa looked directly into his eyes, her dark blue eyes flashing momentarily. "It's not the right time yet, but when it is, he'll know what to do, I hope." She shrugged, and then quietly went back to her work at the counter.
"You're spookin' me, little lady, and we've had enough of that in this town for quite a while," Jeff remarked as he walked away.
Alissa watched Jeff disappear into the back room. "You're wrong, the real horror hasn't even begun," she whispered looking back over at Erik and Shanda.
"I never expected to meet all my family in one place. They were very smart in their planning. How could they have known and planned so well?" Alissa remarked as she continued to gaze at the couple.
* * *
Erik pulled into his ex-wife's driveway and made his way to the door. He rang the bell and waited. Margaret opened the door, her jaw dropped with surprise and she immediately began to look uncomfortable. Erik decided his best course of action was to head her off before she could start again.
"Before you say anything, you were right this morning and I was wrong." Erik knew the best way to head Margaret off was by conceding defeat immediately. "Brianna comes first. They'll be going in without me, whenever they decide to go back," he blurted out quickly.
Margaret took a step back and motioned him inside. "I'm glad you reconsidered." She paused and cleared her throat. "Erik, let me apologize for causing such a scene this morning. I don't know what came over me. The thought of you back out there, possibly dying…." She hesitated. "Even though we're divorced, well, it doesn't mean that I don't…." She faltered again, struggling to get her words out.
"I understand," Erik replied. "And thank you."
Margaret blushed and hugged him awkwardly. "Again, I'm sorry for causing a scene in front of your friends," she said as she pulled herself back. "Can I ask what changed your mind? You seemed dead set to go ahead this morning."
Erik smiled at her, a genuine smile of warmth. "My friends convinced me they would rather have me around than visit my headstone at a cemetery. They also suggested the Munchkin deserved to have her dad around, living, even though he can be pig-headed at times."
"It's good you have friends that care. Listen to them, you'll probably live longer," she added lightly.
"Indeed," Erik remarked, staring up the large wooden staircase.
"Go on up, she's been expecting you," Margaret remarked as she looked up the spacious stairwell.
Erik nodded and quickly headed up the stairs. He walked down the 40-foot foyer, noting the second-floor hallway had more square footage than his entire apartment. He heard the sound of a radio blaring, and knocked on the last doorway.
"Coming," a voice answered.
The door opened slowly and Brianna popped her head outside. When she saw her father, her eyes opened wide with delight.
"Hi, Daddy!" she exclaimed, jumping into his arms.
"Hey, Munchkin, whatcha' doin?" he asked as he carried her back into her room.
"Just hangin' around, listening to some music," she answered as she jumped from his arms and turned off her radio.
Erik took a few seconds to study his daughter's room. It was palatial. There were stuffed animals covering a queen-sized bed with brass head and footboards. Sitting on her desk was a state-of-the-art computer that put the one he used in his business to shame. Erik had to admit his daughter truly did have the best of everything here. Richard and Margaret provided her with anything a little girl could possibly dream of, and everything a blue-collar PI couldn't. He again felt a pang of guilt.
"Are you going to stake the house out tonight?" she asked eagerly. "Can I stay up with you?"
"I don't think a stakeout is needed, Bri, I came to tuck you in and make sure that the alarm is working," he answered as his eyes carefully surveyed the locks on her bedroom windows.
"But, Daddy, I don't want to sleep by myself, what if it comes back?" Her voice was suddenly laden with fear.
"It won't, honey, not here anyway."
"But I'm scared," she whispered.
Erik reached inside his shirt and pulled off his dog tags. "I'm going to tell you a little secret, about a time when I was scared. It was before you were born, I was in the jungles of Columbia and I got separated from my unit after a firefight. I was terrified. I squeezed these tags so tight, that I put a dent in this one. See the dent right here?" He held up the dented tag for her to inspect. "Whenever I felt the fear creeping back up on me, I would squeeze the tags and the fear would pass. After a few days, I found my unit and everything was all right again. But from then on, even today, whenever I get the chills, I squeeze these tags, just like I did years ago, and the fear goes away." He placed the tags over her neck. "If you feel afraid, just squeeze the tags and your fear will go away too, just like it did for me."
Brianna held the tags in her hands and looked at them as if they were more precious than gold. She squeezed the tags and smiled. "I think it's working," she whispered.
"Excellent, I knew it would."
"But, Daddy?" she asked suddenly. "What will you use?"
"Daddy will get by for a few nights without it, you need them more than I do right now."
Her little smile was like a warm ray of sunshine.
Erik spent another thirty minutes with his daughter and then headed back home. He performed one quick sweep of the home's perimeter before he left. Hopefully, his daughter would sleep and not be plagued by nightmares from the hideous ordeals of the day before. Those kinds of horrors were for adults to deal with, not children. All that remained was to tell Nelson that he was off the case, and he couldn't do that until he was contacted. Until then, he had an entire evening to devote to Shanda, and he intended to make the most of it.
Chapter 9
Sunday, 12:45 p.m.
Erik yawned as he bussed the dishes from another table. Shanda had reluctantly left early in the morning to get a fresh change of clothes and check on her business. They had been out late and stayed up even later. He was paying for it now. He had been bussing and waiting tables for almost five hours, and was literally dead on his feet. What he needed more than anything now was a long sleep. Erik discarded his apron and hair net and headed back into his office. He was about to lie down on his couch and sleep, when he heard a knock on his door.
"Who is it?" he asked wearily.
"Alissa."
"Alissa, what's up?" he asked, not bothering to get up from the couch.
"A Mr. Nelson is here to see you. Should I have him come back later?"
Erik stood and opened the door. "No, I'll deal with this now. Could you please have him come back here? And could I impose on you for a fresh pot of coffee? My eyes feel like they're made of sand paper right now."
"I'll take care of it," she assured him.
Erik did his best to snap himself out of the fog he was in. He knew Nelson would be angry with him for pulling out now, but there was no more choice for him in the matter.
Erik heard Nelson and Alissa walking down the hallway. Nelson followed her in and sat on the small couch opposite where Erik was now sitting. Alissa silently poured each man a cup of coffee.
"Will there be anything else?" she asked Erik in a professional manner.
"No, Alissa, that should do, and thank you again."
Alissa smiled and nodded, closing the door behind her as she stepped into the hallway.
Erik studied the older man sitting across from him. He too looked tired, but there was something more. Nelson looked defeated. Erik had seen that look in men before. It didn't fit with Nelson's character.
"I take it you have news," Erik began.
"Yes, and none of it good." Nelson sighed. "I spoke with the Reynolds yesterday. They've decided to let the local authorities take the lead in the investigation. We've been side-lined. I spoke with the chief of police and three town officials this morning and they're leading a force into the woods tomorrow with some local police and reservists from the National Guard. They're bringing in some pretty heavy weapons, M-16s, M-60s, and some other munitions. They're on a mission to exterminate those things, and they said civilians would only be in the way," Nelson remarked as he sipped the steaming mug of coffee.
"Where does that leave us?" Erik asked, doing his best to hide his relief.
"It leaves us running the command post if you're up for being out of the action," Nelson answered.
"Being out of the action is just what I want right now," Erik answered.
"I figured as much, considering what I was told you encountered a few days ago," Nelson replied.
"You heard!" Erik said, surprised.
"Yeah, I got the low down from that cop you're friendly with this morning. He was kind enough to let me read the report he filed," Nelson answered. "That was pretty gutsy, Erik."
"That thing wanted my daughter, that was only going to happen over my dead body." Erik took another sip from his coffee cup. "I do know one thing: These creatures are intelligent and sentient. That one with the red eyes, there's a malevolence there that I've never felt. It's beyond human. They're a part of something that happened here that we can't even begin to understand," he added moodily. Erik suddenly changed his tone. "But, with any luck, by the end of the day tomorrow, they'll be scattered in little pieces across the forest floor."
"Let's hope so," Nelson agreed. "So, I'll see you around 9:00 sharp at the same place as before?"
Erik nodded. "Yeah, I'll be there. We'll see if we can't keep these guys from blowing a hole in each other's head." Erik drained the last of his coffee.
"One thing has been confirmed though, which you were right about all along, I might add," Nelson grumbled as he headed to the door.
"And that is?" Erik replied.
"Based on the events at the park, those things took Lisa Reynolds, and they're after other children for some reason. Whatever the reason is, it can't be anything good." The elder detective adjusted his long trench coat. He paused, reaching inside for a folded binder of papers. He casually tossed the papers on the nearby table, "Here's some light reading."
"What is this?" Erik asked as he eyeballed the documents.
"It's your copy of the lab report on the blood samples we took," Nelson answered. "I turned a copy over to the boys in blue. It makes for some good reading, if you like science fiction."
"Give me the Readers Digest version," Erik walked over to pick up the papers.
"Sulfur-based bio-organic compounds, unconventional DNA helicons, and a whole bunch of other tech jargon right outta Star Trek. The bottom line is, these things are contradictory to every other natural life form that's developed on this planet," he remarked.
Erik picked up the papers and began scanning the report. "If this is accurate, one must assume that these life forms originated elsewhere, or took a completely different evolutionary path, right down to the basic fundamental building blocks of life as we understand them," Erik observed. "I think it highly unlikely that a sulfur-based life form could have developed in a carbon-based environment such as we have on Earth," he added, scratching an unshaven cheek. "This could possibly be a reason that our weapons weren't completely effective. Our bullet weapons are designed to kill life as we know it, based on high-impact shock on a central nervous system, they may not be effective against these creatures, no matter how much power the projectiles have.
"Look at lobsters, they're exoskeleton creatures and they have a simple, almost primitive, nervous system. They don't register pain and shock like we do. What if that black creature is similar to a lobster?" Erik asked while already contemplating the question. "If these things don't have a highly developed nervous system that transmits pain or shock, guns would be of little use. Our weapons certainly didn't do too much to stop them."
Nelson nodded in agreement. "If these things can't be harmed by conventional means, somebody had better find something unconventional and pretty damn fast," Nelson added as he turned toward the door. "Our friends may be in for a nasty surprise when they tangle with these creatures, but they can't say I didn't warn 'em." Nelson headed down the hallway.
Erik closed the door and locked it. He headed toward his long couch and flopped down on the oversized cushion. A slight wave of discomfort shot from his hamstring, and there was a sudden tightness in his chest from his wounds. His body was quickly approaching the end of its endurance. He wanted to study the lab report in greater detail, but was simply too tired. Erik closed his eyes, and blissfully surrendered to the onrush of blackness that overtook him.
"When I wake up," he mumbled to himself as the report fell from his hands to the floor.
* * *
It was early Sunday afternoon, and Richard Pendelton found himself sitting in his boardroom facing his Board of Directors and Corporate Officers. He talked to them early yesterday afternoon and called this emergency meeting. He needed to share what he learned of the events that had transpired Friday, and more importantly, they needed to discuss how to deal with the investigation being conducted tomorrow around their tunnel site. If anyone made it to the site, especially law enforcement officials, they could link Pendelcorp to those creatures due to the hardware and tunneling equipment now abandoned there. Richard had spent an hour briefing the board and officers about his per chance run in with Erik Knight and what he'd learned from that conversation, plus he passed on the operation plans for Monday morning, which he received from his paid mole in the police department.
"The bottom line, gentlemen," Richard concluded, "is this: Do we try to get up there today and remove all traces of our equipment, both inside and outside of the tunnel?"
A board member squirmed. "We've tried that already and it's cost us five more specialists," he reminded the men. "If we send more men and more equipment, we risk incriminat
ing ourselves even further, and leaving behind more bodies. Each of those men that died up there had some sort of identification on their persons. In order to assure a complete cover up, each body would have to be checked and all forms of identification removed." He paused, sipping his glass of imported sherry. "But then there is still the possibility of dental record identification or other means such as finger printing or any of the other dozen means, which we're probably not even aware," he concluded. "Or," the board member amended, "we dispose of the bodies completely, incinerate them, leaving only the hardware issues."
"Excellent points, Conrad," Richard remarked. He realized Conrad was probably the slickest operator of all the men here, and Richard needed to utilize those qualities if he wanted to keep his company afloat for more than the next forty-eight hours. "I assume you have a deeper insight to this ugly predicament in which we find ourselves?"
Conrad smiled a Cheshire Cat smile as he placed his drink back on the table. "That's what you pay me for." He produced a thin bound document from his briefcase and placed it on the large conference table. "We've managed to translate some small portion of the writing that our recon team photographed. Most of it is unlike anything we've ever seen before, but our computers could translate small pieces. The rest, we will probably never be able to interpret." He handed the report to Pendelton. "It seems we inadvertently opened a prison vault and freed, what I can only assume, were the jail keepers." The room broke into silence as Conrad began the story that was told in the ancient writings that the doomed expedition recorded and sent back for analysis.
"We broke into some kind of prison, near as we can interpret. The skeletons we saw in the pictures were remnants of those being jailed." He sipped his sherry. "What we freed were the creatures used to keep those jailed in their confinement. There were two dominant symbols. We can only assume that these symbols represented two races. From what we can gather, there was some sort of war, although we couldn't translate the phrase used correctly. Conflict is the synonym our computer chose. The losers of that war were imprisoned. We have no idea what happened to the winners of the conflict. I'm sure the data is there, we just lack the capability to interpret it. As far as our scientists can tell, what we translated was left in a language we could decipher, based on elementary mathematics, intentionally, as a deliberate warning not to tamper." Conrad drew in a deep breath. "Now, for some bad news. The metallic readings our initial instrument surveys detected were simply the vault that imprisoned them. The instrument readings the team recorded matched the recordings of our preliminary readings almost 100 percent. Simply put, there are no vast mineral deposits, no fortune in gold, or deposits of rare elements. The only value that exists is the metal used in that massive tomb."