Ghost Canyon (The John Decker Supernatural Thriller Series Book 7)

by Anthony M. Strong

  “There’s no need to fret,” he whispered, his lips inches from her ear.

  “Easy for you to say,” Tiffany replied. “You’ve done this before.”

  “And nothing has ever come sniffing around.”

  “That doesn’t mean it won’t,” Tiffany said. “I heard those coyotes earlier.”

  “I thought you might feel this way,” Darwin replied. He rolled over, dragging the sleeping bag, and her, along with him. He reached into his pack and withdrew a small bulky object.

  At first, Tiffany didn’t know what it was, but when he reached up and turned the lantern on again, she saw it was a small handgun.

  “Where did you get that?” She asked, surprised. As far as she knew, he’d never owned a weapon, except for the baseball bat they kept in their closet.

  “I borrowed it off Mitchel.”

  “That figures. He’s like a walking armory,” Tiffany replied. Mitchel was the first friend Darwin made after arriving in Nevada, but he was a little too obsessed with weapons for Tiffany’s liking. “Is it loaded?”

  “He said it was.”

  “You didn’t check?”

  “I figured he knew what he was talking about.” Darwin returned the gun to his pack. “Besides, I don’t intend to use it. I just thought it would help you sleep better.”

  “Do you even know how to use it?”

  “How hard can it be?” Darwin reached up and turned the lantern off again. “You point it and press the trigger.”

  “Pull the trigger.”

  “Whatever.”

  “It was a nice gesture. Thank you.” Tiffany rested her head on Darwin’s shoulder and closed her eyes. Knowing the gun was there if the need arose, did actually make her feel safe. Which was why, after a few minutes, she fell into a deep sleep.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The high-pitched, undulating shriek jolted Tiffany from her slumber. She let out a startled cry and sat up, forgetting momentarily that she was cocooned in a sleeping bag with Darwin, and not laying in her own bed.

  “What’s going on?” Darwin asked, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, and pushing himself up on his elbows.

  “I thought I heard something,” Tiffany said, glancing nervously toward the tent flap. “It sounded really close.”

  “It was probably just a coyote.” Darwin yawned and went to settle back into the sleeping bag. “Come back to bed.”

  “I swear, I heard something outside the tent. It wasn’t a coyote. It sounded nothing like what we heard earlier.” Tiffany reached up and clicked on the lantern, relieved to see that the tent flap was still closed and zipped shut.

  “Whatever you heard, it’s not making any noise now,” Darwin said. “Coyote or not, it’s probably miles away.”

  Tiffany strained her ears and listened, but now all she heard was the wind rustling the sides of the tent. Reluctantly, she slipped back down into the sleeping bag. “I know what I heard,” she whispered.

  “Are you sure you weren’t just having a bad dream?” Darwin asked. “Maybe you only thought you heard something.”

  “It’s possible, but…” Now that she thought about it, Tiffany wasn’t certain what she’d heard. Maybe she had merely scared herself awake, although she couldn’t remember having a nightmare. Then again, being stuck out here in the wilderness, it was no wonder she was jumpy. She wished, not for the first time, that Darwin had wanted to go to a hotel for his birthday trip, or maybe even take a cruise. She had never been on a ship before. That would be so much better than laying on the hard ground out in the Mojave Desert with coyotes prowling the hills. She turned to Darwin. “Maybe I did imagine it.”

  “There you go.” Darwin opened an eye and looked at her. “You left the lantern on.”

  “Sorry.” Tiffany pushed herself up again, careful not to jostle Darwin this time, and reached out to turn the light back off. As her finger found the switch, however, the inhuman shriek came again, long and warbling. And this time, it sounded closer.

  “Holy crap,” Darwin exclaimed. He scrambled to extricate himself from the sleeping bag, kicking up the fabric and pushing it aside. The tent was not tall enough for him to stand, so he crouched, bent over, wearing nothing but a pair of briefs. “Is that what you heard?”

  “That’s it, exactly.” Tiffany noted. “I told you I wasn’t dreaming.”

  “Okay. I believe you.” Darwin was pulling his jeans on, trying to balance on one leg. He almost fell over, grabbing the tent pole at the last moment to save himself. “You’re right. That doesn’t sound like a coyote.”

  “Then what does it sound like?” Tiffany said. “Are there bears in this area?”

  “I’ve heard stories of people spotting bears in the desert, but they shouldn’t be this far south.” Darwin managed to get both legs into his jeans and buckled them up. He pulled his shirt on. “But there’s no way that was a bear. Sounded nothing like it.”

  “Mountain lion, then?”

  “Possible. I have no idea what a mountain lion sounds like.”

  “I thought you were the big manly outdoorsman.” Tiffany sat with her legs pulled up to her chest. She bit one of her fingernails nervously. “Isn’t that why you wanted to go camping instead of going on a real vacation?”

  “Just because I enjoy camping doesn’t mean I’m an expert on every animal in the Mojave.” Darwin kept his voice to a whisper. “For all I know, it was a damned jackrabbit.”

  “I’m pretty sure that was no rabbit.” Tiffany glanced toward the pack with the gun in it. “Go outside and look.”

  “What?” Darwin shook his head. “There’s no way I’m going out there.”

  “Fine,” Tiffany said. She reached for the pack. “I’ll go, then.”

  “What?” Darwin shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Well, we sure as hell can’t just sit here all night hoping whatever that was won’t come sniffing around our tent.”

  Darwin put a hand on her shoulder. “Okay, I’ll go look.”

  “Thank you.” Tiffany felt a rush of relief. She wasn’t sure she could actually have gone through with it.

  Darwin pushed his hand inside the backpack and pulled out a flashlight, then dug back in for the gun. Armed now, he crawled toward the front of the tent. He pulled the zipper up to release the flap, clicked on the flashlight, and glanced back. “Stay here.”

  Tiffany nodded.

  Darwin hesitated a moment, then he took a deep breath and pushed his way outside.

  The tent flap fell closed behind him, cutting off Tiffany’s view of the outside world. She rocked back and forth, hugging her knees, and waited for Darwin to return.

  A minute passed. Then another.

  She stared at the tent flap, feeling more nervous with each second now she was alone. She shouldn’t have asked him to go outside. Whatever was she thinking?

  Another two minutes ticked by.

  Her distress was almost at breaking point. She leaned forward and reached out, pulling the flap open a couple of inches.

  “Darwin,” she whispered. “Where are you?”

  Silence.

  “Please, Darwin, answer me.” Tiffany felt a lump form in her throat. She sucked back a sob. “I don’t like this.”

  Still, there was no response.

  Tiffany wriggled to free her legs from the sleeping bag and crawled to the flap. She pushed her head out and looked around. There was no sign of her boyfriend.

  “Dammit,” she cursed under her breath. The last thing she wanted to do was go outside, but she didn’t want to stay in the tent either. Her mind was conjuring up all sorts of dreadful scenarios. Besides, if she found Darwin, they could hop in the Jeep and leave. She was sure he wouldn’t want to stay here anymore, and she certainly didn’t. To hell with the tent. They could come back for it later. With newfound resolve, Tiffany ignored the gut churning fear in her stomach and scrambled out into the chilly night air.

  She stood up and glanced around. The Jeep stood o
ff to her left, a dark outline against the deeper blackness beyond. The fire was nothing but smoldering ashes. A canopy of stars arched over the mountains like a million pinpricks in the heavens. But of Darwin, there was no sign.

  A sudden panic gripped her. Why couldn’t she see him? She edged further from the tent, wishing she too had a flashlight. Darkness folded around her like a blanket. She had the weird feeling of being totally isolated, as if she were the only person left on the face of the planet.

  Then, out of the corner of her eye, she caught a flicker of movement. She swiveled as a panicked scream surged up, only to find Darwin’s familiar form emerging from the darkness behind the tent.

  “I looked everywhere, there’s nothing.” He walked toward her, flashlight bobbing.

  “That’s impossible. You heard that shriek.”

  “I don’t know what to tell you.” Darwin shrugged. “Maybe it was just a…” He let the words trail off, his eyes snapping skyward.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.” Darwin looked in one direction, then the other. “I could have sworn something flew over us.” Darwin craned his neck upward. “It was large, too. Bigger than a bird.”

  “Stop it, you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m scaring myself.”

  “We should leave. Take the Jeep and get out of here.” Tiffany didn’t care if Darwin protested. She was driving back to Vegas with or without him. She was relieved when he nodded his agreement.

  “Good idea.” He turned back toward the tent, was about to duck inside, when the shriek came again.

  A dark shape swooped from the sky, barely missing their heads, before climbing back into the darkness.

  Darwin swung the gun upward into the night sky and pulled the trigger, but nothing happened.

  The thrum of beating wings, much too loud, filled the air. It was coming back.

  Darwin aimed loosely toward the sound and fired again.

  Still nothing.

  “Why won’t this work,” he said, frantically waving the gun up at the firmament.

  “Is there a safety?” Tiffany asked.

  “Shit.” Darwin thumbed the push button safety behind the trigger guard, and this time the gun fired with a resounding crack.

  Tiffany jumped and suppressed a squeal.

  Darwin fired blindly into the sky, squeezing off two more shots in rapid succession.

  “Did you get it?” Tiffany asked.

  “I don’t know.” Darwin swiveled, eyes searching the heavens. “Maybe.”

  “We need to leave. Right now.” Tiffany turned and took a step toward the tent. From behind her, Darwin let out a sharp grunt.

  When she looked back, he was gone.

  Fear, like an icy hand, twisted her gut.

  “Darwin?” She screamed, hoping he would reappear.

  And he did, but not from where she thought.

  Her boyfriend’s torn body dropped out of the cold dark sky and landed on the desert floor with a thud a few feet from her. It bounced and came to rest. Darwin’s vacant dead eyes stared back at her. Blood seeped from a vicious gash across his belly and pooled beneath him.

  Tiffany stifled a scream and backed away, horrified, while in the darkness above, came a beat of wings. Whatever killed Darwin was coming back. She could see it wheeling lower and lower in tight circles—a dark silhouette with red eyes blazing. And even though she was desperate to escape, wanted so much to flee for her life, Tiffany remained frozen, unable to tear her eyes away, as death barreled down toward her.

  Chapter Thirty

  Decker was dreaming about Nancy when a distant crack roused him from sleep. It was gunfire. As a former homicide cop, he would recognize that sound anywhere. He lay there listening and soon heard two more sharp reports.

  He rose and went to the window, pulling the curtain back and staring out into the night. Decker wondered who would discharge a weapon in the middle of the desert in the early hours of the morning.

  Was someone in trouble?

  If they were, he was powerless to help. The shots did not sound close. They could have come from anywhere, reverberating through the canyons and off whatever structures lay hereabouts. It would be impossible to pinpoint from which direction the gunshots had originated, especially since the sound could travel a mile or more. He stayed at the window for a while, listening, but heard no more gunfire.

  He gazed out across the landscape, searching for any signs of movement, but saw nothing.

  The cluster of tumbledown buildings that made up the ghost town of Haley stood out as stark black outlines against the surrounding landscape. There were no streetlights here, and when his gaze drifted upward, he marveled at the Milky Way arching overhead like some celestial river cutting through the deep emptiness of the cosmos. In that moment, he felt small. Insignificant. While somewhere out there, in the vast expanse of the Mojave Desert, another person, themselves minuscule in the grand scheme of the universe, had squeezed off three shots. Perhaps they were attempting to ward off some imminent danger, like a coyote or mountain lion, or maybe they were shooting at nothing in particular, just for the hell of it. Either way, they had stopped now.

  Decker let the curtain fall back into place and returned to his bed. He slid under the covers and closed his eyes. Minutes later, he drifted away and rejoined Nancy in the dream that had been so abruptly interrupted.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Harlan Biggs slept through the night for the first time in weeks. He awoke refreshed and more optimistic than he had in a long time. He jumped up and went to the laptop in his office. When he checked his mail, there was a message from Sergeant Lawson. Attached to it was the LVMPD report filed by the two officers who had responded to the incident at the Ghost Canyon Mine. He read it with interest, then read it a second time, just to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. Then he noticed the second attachment. An MPEG movie named BodyCam1. He clicked and waited for the file to load, his excitement mounting.

  When it played, he maximized the window and leaned close to the screen. The footage was grainy and dark, clearly shot inside the mine. There was no sound. The picture jumped around all over the place. It was mostly just undefined shades of darkness, with an occasional flashlight beam highlighting rocky walls gouged by chisel marks. Once in a while it picked up another person as they stepped into the camera’s path, but beyond this there was nothing of interest.

  Harlan yawned. This was not as interesting as he’d first imagined. He wondered why Lawson had bothered to send it. He fumbled for the mouse, intending to shut the video off, but then he froze, hardly able to believe what he was seeing. Now he knew why the sergeant had sent this to him. He clicked on the progress bar at the bottom and dragged it back a couple of minutes to watch the segment again, then did it a third time. His heart was beating fast against his rib cage. This video was better than any report. It was proof positive that his great-great-grandfather’s journal was anything but the alcoholic rantings of a crazy old man.

  Shaking, Harlan closed the video and made a copy which he stashed on his cloud account, just to be safe. Then he hurried to the bedroom and pulled on a pair of jeans and a denim shirt. He went to the closet and found a pair of hiking boots. Ignoring his Rolex watch, which he would never normally leave behind, Harlan raced from the penthouse and jumped in the elevator.

  When he reached the lobby, he went in search of Wagner Mitchell. He found the GM in the casino overseeing the installation of the craps tables.

  “You bring your truck today?” Harlan asked, rushing toward him.

  “Sure.” Wagner nodded. “Why?”

  “I need to borrow it.” Harlan held his hand out. “Give me the keys.”

  “What?” Wagner looked confused. “Why don’t you take the Porsche?”

  “Because I’m going out into the desert,” Harlan said. “If I end up on a dirt road, it might bottom out. Besides, I don’t want to get dust all over it.”

  “You don’t mind getting my new truck dirty?�
��

  “For Pete’s sake, it’s a truck. I’ll give you twenty bucks to take it through the car wash if you’re that worried. Hurry up. Keys,” Harlan snapped his fingers, then he had a better idea. “You know what, on second thought, why don’t you come with me. You can drive.”

  “Where?”

  “An old ghost town called Haley.” Harlan took off toward the parking garage.

  “Haley?” Wagner hurried to catch up with him. “Isn’t that where those folks got killed the other day while they were tromping around some abandoned mine? I saw it on the news.”

  “Yeah.” Harlan was passing the buffet restaurant now. He glanced within, at the tables and chairs stacked against one wall, and the tarps laid out on the floor so that they could repaint the walls and ceiling. Once he was past the restaurant, he turned left and saw the exit leading to the parking garage directly ahead.

  “Why do you want to go out there?” Wagner asked as they entered the garage and approached a red Ford F150 truck with gleaming chrome rims.

  “Because it might be the only way I can pay Oscar Rossi back and save my hide.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.” Wagner unlocked the truck with the key fob remote and slid behind the wheel. “You sure you’re feeling all right, Harlan?”

  “I’m feeling fine. Just start the damned engine and get us out there. I’ll tell you on the way.”

  “Take it easy, I was just asking.” Wagner started the truck and steered through the parking garage to the exit. When he reached the road, he turned right toward East Flamingo Road. “You got an address for this place?”

  “It’s out on Ninety-Five.”

  “Fine, put the address in the GPS.” Wagner turned left on Flamingo, heading away from the Strip toward the interstate.