But there was a problem with that plan.
Jackson Healey had no idea where to go.
Hell, he didn’t really even know where he was. His mind was foggy, his memories vague and unclear. He had an almost dreamlike recollection of hitting somebody in the head, hitting them in the head because…because…someone was chasing him….they were chasing him and had almost caught up to him…
And then it all came back to him.
Everything.
Shooting the Krupp brothers in South America and stealing the Peruvian golden disk and the strange immortality juice from the man who had stepped right through the solid rock formation.
Fleeing north into the United States thinking he was home free.
Finding out the Krupps had survived and were hunting him.
Running again, month after month spent with the Krupps dogging his every move, finally arriving in the tiny northern Maine village with the Krupps right on his tail, killing the liquor distributor and then knocking the tavern owner out to keep him from blabbing about the secret slave hideaway to Amos and Wesley.
But then what had happened? His plan had been a good one, and the innkeeper was out cold, as he remembered. He had felt his way along the pitch-dark subterranean passageway and into the secret room, practically dragging the barkeep’s little woman behind him. The granite-block door had barely closed ahead of the Krupps’ arrival, so he knew they had searched the tavern.
The last thing he remembered was hearing the muffled, faraway sounds of destruction: walls crashing down, timbers and beams falling, the tavern being destroyed. Wesley and Amos must have known he had outsmarted them—again—and one of them had snapped. Probably Amos, he thought, the man had never had an ounce of patience in his entire big ugly body.
One or both of the Krupps had done something rash. Given the level of destruction that seemed to have been occurring beyond those thick foundation blocks, the damned fools had probably set fire to the tavern, burning it down with the innkeeper—the only man with the knowledge that three human beings were trapped inside a secret underground room with no way out—lying unconscious on the basement floor.
That meant the innkeeper had either burned to death or been killed by falling rubble, and that had been the beginning of the end for Jackson Healy, the innkeeper’s lovely wife, and one very pissed off old black slave. The three people paced back and forth inside the tiny room, mostly trying to stay out of each other’s way, all attempting, with varying degrees of success, to quell their rising panic.
When two hours had elapsed and the innkeeper had not yet returned to release them from their subterranean prison, Jackson knew he wasn’t going to return.
Ever.
The innkeeper had been so stricken about his wife being held hostage that Jackson knew he would not have let one extra second elapse after the Krupp brothers departed before would rush to the basement and release her.
Thus, he was dead or dying and they were never getting out.
They had gone through their supplies slowly, rationing them more or less on an equal basis, although it became much easier to accomplish when Sarah mostly stopped eating. Once she realized her husband must have been killed and there was no hope of rescue, it seemed to Jackson that she was anxious to get on with the business of dying in order to join the innkeeper in whatever came after this life.
And she did it, too. She was the first to die.
Jackson had lost track of the number of days they had been trapped underground when the young woman slipped away, but it seemed as though her death had happened much more quickly than it should have, given her apparent good health. But what did he know? He was no doctor, and her fate didn’t concern him, anyway.
What did concern him was the prospect of sharing their earthen prison cell with a decomposing corpse, that concerned him a lot, but by this time there were much more serious issues to worry about. Their food was running low, and the old black slave’s health was deteriorating rapidly, and Jackson knew the man would also die soon. Then he would be down here alone, trapped with two corpses, and would likely go mad before following his fellow prisoners into death.
But Jackson had a secret, something he had carried with him for two years, afraid to use but unwilling to discard. Day after day—or perhaps night after night; Jackson had long since lost track of hours and days down here, and what difference did it make, anyway?—when the old man drifted off to a troubled sleep, Jackson would pull the long, clear tube out of the breast pocket of his overcoat and examine its gel-like contents, recalling the words the young Peruvian guide had spoken just minutes before Jackson had shot the kid: If you drink the liquid, you will live forever.
What had the boy meant by that? The words seemed clear enough, but were they really?
The words had been a translation, uttered for his benefit by a child with a child’s unquestioning belief in their truth. The boy had spoken them with such conviction, Jackson had almost believed them himself, and why wouldn’t he? He had just seen with his own eyes a solid, seamless boulder transform – impossibly – into a door, using nothing more than a solid gold doorknob. He’d seen a massive humanoid figure appear out of nowhere, dressed in foreign, almost alien-looking clothing. He’d seen with his own eyes a mystical ceremony probably not observed by any other living white man.
He’d seen things he would never understand.
After all of that, and in the dead of night, under the starry South American sky, what the hell else could he believe?
He had put enough stock in the child’s words to be sure he took possession of the bizarre gel-like liquid sealed inside the clear tube before stealing the gold disk and murdering everyone—or at least, thinking he had murdered everyone—and then fleeing the continent.
But that was where it had ended. Jackson Healy never quite developed enough faith in the story enough to actually drink the stuff.
Now, though, with the body of the innkeeper’s wife moldering in a corner of the room not eight feet away, with the stench of death and decomposition filling his lungs with every wretched breath he took, with the ancient black slave already weak and getting weaker, soon to follow the dead woman into the great beyond, he supposed he had no choice. It was either drink the liquid and take his chances, or suffer for a few more days or weeks and then die like his two fellow prisoners, alone and miserable.
So he had drunk the liquid and taken his chances.
5
Mike McMahon was pacing. He paced a lot these days, having resigned his former position as chief of the Paskagankee Police Department over concerns raised by the Town Council about a potential conflict of interest, given the fact he was living with one of his subordinates on the force.
At the time of his resignation, no one had as yet approached him about his living arrangements, but it would only have been a matter of time, so he had saved them the trouble. He submitted his letter of resignation the very day he proposed to Sharon.
He had known for months that the day was coming when he would be forced to choose between the two things he loved – his job and his girl – and the results of a bizarre plot hatched by a power-hungry maniac last year involving a sacred Navajo stone and the kidnapping of a world-renowned software developer had served to simplify the decision in a way nothing else could have.
Sharon had nearly died.
Her quick thinking and unerring cop instincts had allowed her to narrowly escape a horrific death at the hands of Earl Manning, a local drunkard and former lover of Sharon’s who had been turned into the unwitting – and unwilling – pawn of cult leader Max Acton. Mike’s inability to save Sharon and the knowledge that he had nearly lost her forever had made the choice an easy one: he could always find another job, but the idea of living without the petite, fiery Sharon Dupont was unacceptable.
And he had never regretted his decision, not once. But finding work with strictly a law-enforcement background in a town as remote as Paskagankee, Maine, a stone’s throw from the Canadian bo
rder, was easier said than done, and he had spent most of the time since his resignation cooling his heels.
He would have a temporary but lucrative gig in a couple of months. Hollywood was coming to Paskagankee in the form of a film crew and a bunch of actors Mike had mostly never heard of to do location shooting for the upcoming motion picture based on Portland Journal reporter Melissa Mannheim’s book, NIGHTS OF TERROR.
Mannheim had written the book two years ago, based on the string of brutal murders that gripped Paskagankee almost immediately upon Mike’s arrival in the little town. The book became an instant bestseller, earning Mannheim lots of money—nobody knew how much and Mannheim wasn’t saying—and, of course, the obligatory movie deal.
As the hero who single-handedly stopped the violence, Mike had been approached by the film’s production company, which had insisted on hiring him as a credited “special consultant.”
The problem was Mike McMahon had no desire to be listed as a consultant on a horror movie. He had lived through the experience first-hand and felt no desire to revisit those awful days, with Sharon Dupont missing and feared dead. That, combined with Mike’s certainty that no movie could do justice to the story, led him to turn the offer down flat, despite the fact it came with a fat paycheck and few actual duties.
Unused to being rebuffed, NorthStar Productions management refused to take no for an answer, and after weeks of email negotiations, they reached a compromise. Mike would not be listed anywhere in the film’s credits, but would agree to sign on as temporary head of security for the short time the crew was in town. He would make himself available to answer questions from the film’s director and stars on an unofficial consulting basis, and in return would receive a fat check.
Mike still wasn’t convinced he had done the right thing in signing the contract, but money was money, and at least the gig would give him something to do for a while. Unfortunately, the film crew wasn’t due in town for eight weeks, leading to Mike’s current situation: wearing a pathway in the carpet of Sharon Dupont’s living room.
He traipsed through the kitchen, pausing to take a sip of coffee from a cup strategically placed on the stovetop, then resumed his restless wandering: through the kitchen, across the living room in front of the couch, sharp left turn just before crashing into the rarely-used TV, through the dining room, and then back into the kitchen for more coffee and to start the circuit again.
For the thousandth time over the last three days, Mike wished the rain would stop falling so he could walk outside, but a glance out the window confirmed what he already knew: his wishes weren’t being well-received by the weather gods. The rain sluiced down in dark gray sheets.
Mike shook his head in disgust and had just begun another trip around his personal walking circuit, when the telephone rang, making him jump. He squinted at the Caller ID screen, surprised to be hearing from Sharon. He had seen her briefly at lunchtime and didn’t expect to hear from her again until she returned home at the end of her patrol shift.
The number glowed on the screen and he realized it wasn’t Sharon after all. The caller was new Paskagankee Police Chief Pete Kendall, the man who had succeeded Mike in the chief’s job – despite not yet being thirty years old – following Mike’s glowing recommendation. Pete rarely phoned, and when he did, it was almost always after hours. This clearly wasn’t a social call.
“Huh,” he mumbled to himself, and pressed the Talk button. “Hello?”
“Hey, Mike, this is Pete Kendall. How’s the life of a semi-retired gentleman treating you?”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Mike answered with a smile. “Although at least I don’t have to deal with dumbass cops every day anymore.”
Pete laughed. “I can see you’ve given the issue a lot of thought, but remember, it takes one to know one. Anyway, I’m sorry to pull you away from your deep philosophical musings, but we’ve got a situation, and I was hoping you might be available to provide a little input on it.”
“Of course. What kind of situation?”
“I don’t know if you’re aware, but the septic system failed at the Ridge Runner, and Bo Pellerin was forced to replace the whole thing.”
“Listen, I know I agreed to serve as occasional consultant to the Paskagankee PD, but I’m not sure I’m qualified to take on the job of digging a septic system. Or that I want to, for that matter.”
Pete laughed again, the sound warm and friendly. It reminded Mike how much he missed his old life. “No, I’m not asking you to play in the mud and…you know, the other stuff. Bo’s already hired Dan Melton to do that. But here’s the thing: Dan was digging the pit for the new septic system this morning and he uncovered what appears to be human remains in some kind of hidden underground bunker next to the Ridge Runner.”
“A body buried next to the Ridge Runner?”
“More than one.”
“How many more?”
Kendall paused, and Mike wondered why. The question seemed pretty straightforward. Then the young police chief cleared his throat and said, “It depends who you believe. There are two sets of what I’m certain are human skeletal remains positioned almost right next to each other at the bottom of the hole, but…”
“But what?”
“But Dan swears there were three bodies down there when he made the discovery.”
Mike ran a hand through his hair. “What? How long was the hole left unattended?”
“Melton says he called us on his cell from the cab of the earthmover the minute he discovered the bodies, and that he waited for the arrival of the cruiser—Sharon responded, by the way—in front of the bar.”
“How long did it take her to get there?”
“She happened to be in the area on patrol at the time, so she was very close. Mike, she radioed in on arrival at the Ridge Runner not five minutes after Gordie took Melton’s call.”
“Let me get this straight. Someone stole a dead body that no one even knew existed until this morning, within five minutes of its discovery, with Dan Melton right around the corner? And Dan didn’t see a thing? That’s impossible, Pete.”
“I know that. Even if someone had been watching Melton dig the hole and had snuck down there the minute his back was turned, it just would not have been possible to bring the body up from the bottom of the hole and spirit it away without being observed.”
“So what happened? The corpse got up and walked away by itself?”
“Melton says that’s exactly what happened.”
6
Mike was inside his car and on the way to the Ridge Runner five minutes later. He had been a Paskagankee resident long enough by now that navigating the winding, remote roads, often roads badly in need of repair, was second nature and required little conscious thought. As he drove through the fuzzy afternoon drizzle, he considered Dan Melton’s odd claim that three bodies had been at the bottom of the hole when he called the police, and only two were there upon Sharon’s arrival just minutes later.
The obvious conclusion was that Melton was mistaken, that he had been so shaken up by his gruesome discovery that he had counted wrong in his shock and his haste to notify the authorities. It was the only thing that made sense.
But Pete Kendall was not a stupid man; he wouldn’t have needed Mike’s input to figure that one out. If Pete had gone to the trouble of calling Mike, then he obviously felt there was more to the story. Something else was going on, or at least Pete thought so.
Mike pulled into the gravel lot and parked as close to the front of the Ridge Runner as possible. Scowling out through the bar’s front plate-glass window was Bo Pellerin, clearly unhappy with this latest development. The owner of the Ridge Runner wasn’t the easiest man to get along with under any circumstances, and three-plus days of lost revenue—with who knew how many more to be tacked on to that total now—had undoubtedly pushed his patience right to the breaking point.
Pete, Sharon and Dan Melton were gathered in a tight cluster in front of the door, apparently p
referring the cold, wet weather outside the bar to having to listen to Bo complain inside. Mike offered a smile and nodded to each of them as he stepped out of the car. Sharon looked exhausted, but she returned his smile brightly, and for maybe the ten thousandth time in the last two years he thanked God for her and wondered how he had ever gotten so lucky to wind up engaged to the beautiful young patrol officer.
“So,” he said, shaking hands with the two men and kissing Sharon lightly on the cheek. It felt awkward, but he had given up his position as police chief to avoid the appearance of impropriety that came from sleeping with a subordinate, and he felt he had earned the right to a little PDA. Sharon didn’t seem to mind. “We started out with three bodies and now we have two?”
“That’s right,” Melton replied defensively, like he was tired of being second-guessed. Probably he was. Mike looked him in the eye and winked, trying to put the man at ease. The last thing they needed was a witness who had grown tired of cooperating.
“I’m sure you guys have had enough for one day,” he said, speaking mostly to Melton, “but would you mind slogging out to where the bodies were discovered one more time?” No one objected, at least not out loud, and the group began walking along the front of the bar.
As soon as they turned the corner Mike could see the massive yellow Caterpillar earthmover parked in the open field behind the Ridge Runner. It sat just beyond the edge of a rectangular-shaped pit, with a big mound of muddy earth piled up beside the hole and a stack of concrete baffles next to the dirt. The Cat seemed to be settling into the mud on its tracks, as if in anticipation of a long stay. Two halves of a thick beam, partially rotted away, lay on the far side of the mound.
At the edge of the pit, Mike looked down and saw what did, indeed, appear to be a room dug out of the earth adjacent to and a few feet away from the granite-block foundation of the Ridge Runner. With his earthmover, Melton had neatly stripped part of the reinforced ceiling of the room away while digging the new septic system leach field.
Wellspring (Paskagankee, Book 3) Page 8