“Okay, the colonel said to lock you up until he gets here.” He made a gesture toward the teenager, indicating for him to get on his feet.
“Anything the man says, right, Chief?” Dean said as he stood up and straightened the letterman’s jacket.
Thomas didn’t answer, taking Dean by the elbow and leading him to a door. Dean saw the three jail cells and made up his mind. The chief opened the first cell, stepped aside, and gestured the boy in. Dean stepped up but stopped short of entering.
“We know what you and the others have done, you know,” Dean said as he slowly turned toward Thomas, trying to make his bluff seem as plausible as he could. “We know about the ruins. We know about Dr. Fromm.”
That was it. That was the total package of everything he and Gloria had discovered from his father’s office. It was enough to make Thomas stop cold and allowed his true facial color to appear. It was white.
“You don’t know crap, kid. Anyone as rich and spoiled as you can’t know anything but girls and cars and how much Daddy gives you in allowance.” He leaned in and started to push Dean into the cell.
“Sorry, Chief,” Dean said as he took a quick step back, snatching the ring of keys, and then with his left hand reached for the chief’s gun and with his right pushed him into the cell, where the man stumbled and fell face-first into the unmade bunk. Dean quickly closed the door and then just as fast placed the .38 revolver on the floor across from the cell along with the keys, out of reach Thomas’s reach.
“Boy, you don’t want to do this,” Thomas said as he quickly gained his feet and reached through the bars. Dean easily stepped back out of reach.
“I think I just did it, Chief,” he said as he reached for the door handle and left the cell area.
At that exact moment, a sliver of John’s mind was following Dean, and another part of him was inside the darkened Bottom Dollar Bar and Grill.
* * *
Gloria sat far back from crowded dance floor and the busy bar. She could feel Charlie’s eyes on her, and she slowly raised her right hand and flipped the bartender the finger.
“How does she do that?” Charlie said, eyeing her a moment longer before passing the extra bartender they had on for Halloween and heading for the storage room.
Gloria cocked her head to the right and listened. She heard a sound familiar from the past years of helping her father in the bar. She heard the storeroom door open and then close. She moved quickly, assuming it had been Charlie who entered the storeroom, as he would never trust their part-time bartender to get in with the stock. She started moving in between tables that had yet to be occupied. She cursed herself for not having her cane with her, but it was inside Dean’s car. She braced herself as she moved dangerously fast. She managed to only bump three tables as she made her way toward the back door that led into the alley. She didn’t stop to listen for Charlie; she went straight to the door and pushed it open. Before she could take a step, she felt her nose crash into something unyielding. She knew she had been caught.
“Hey!” said a voice as Gloria rebounded away and was starting to turn in the opposite direction to make another break for the front door when two strong hands grabbed her.
As she was turned, she brought up her right hand and punched outward. She felt her knuckles connect, and then she heard, “Ow!”
“Oh, God, Dean?” she asked as she covered her mouth with both hands.
Holding his nose with one hand, he reached out and took Gloria by the hand with the other and pulled her free of the Bottom Dollar. He started running with her flying behind him.
“They took the keys to my car,” he said, his voice strange after the blow to his nose.
“Stop running. I know where we can go to hide. They won’t think of looking for us there.”
* * *
Main Street was packed. Children, as tradition called for, started their trick-or-treating by hitting all the businesses first. The stores stayed open late for the event, and busloads of children invited by Moreno from out of town came to share in the joint celebration of Halloween and the ending of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Costumed kids dragging their parents by the hand made for a good cover as Dean and Gloria walked down Main without attracting attention to themselves. Dean kept glancing at the police station and was relieved not to see his father’s Caddy parked out front. That meant his break had yet to be detected.
Gloria stopped just as they reached the Grenada Theater. Dean looked at the long line of teenagers just starting to get tickets from the box office. Several of them called out to Dean, but he turned away as if he hadn’t heard them. Three boys at the end of the line, however, took notice. Jimmy Weller punched Sam Manachi on the arm to get his attention as he pointed out the new arrivals.
“They’ll show up here later; everyone does eventually. We can take that bastard then,” Sam said, not very interested in revenge at the moment.
“He’ll never see it coming,” Jimmy said as his eyes bored in not just on Dean but Gloria also.
* * *
Dean looked around as Gloria leaned in to him. He looked at the marquee high above his head.
Halloween Monster Mash
The Tingler—House on Haunted Hill—The House of Wax
Starring Vincent Price
Hosted by K-Rave Radio and Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads—Tonight, 9:00 p.m.
The red plastic letters were bright and coupled with the flashing neon were damn near blinding. They saw the K-Rave step van out in front as teenagers crowded around Freekin’ Rowdy Rhoads as he unspooled a reel of microphone wire. Freekin’ Rowdy looked up from his adoring and very irritating teenybopper fans and saw Dean and Gloria looking none too good after their flight. He got a curious look on his face as he took the two in. He finished with his wire, winked at Dean, and raised his hands up in a boxer’s stance, jabbing at the air. Dean gave him a dirty look.
“Come on. We can cross now. Hurry—I feel eyes all over us.”
“Maybe that’s because everyone sees us,” Dean said as Gloria angrily pulled him into the street.
Again, they failed to see the man in the dark trench coat and fedora follow at a discreet distance.
* * *
As the two-man security team moved past the broken south wall of the old winery just below the shattered and ancient remains of the Spanish mission, the boy held the girl tightly. Gloria felt his strong arms on her as he lowered her to the dead grass surrounding the old ruins. She felt the chill go through her as the butterflies rose from her stomach. She was beginning to feel anticipatory chills when Dean touched her, and she found herself liking it. She cursed her weakness at the thought of having this stuck-up, snobby boy enthrall her so much that she could nearly swoon at his mere touch. She shook her head, his arms holding her in place as the security team moved past. It would be a cold day in hell—her father’s favorite saying—before she ever admitted that weakness to him, or anyone else, for that matter. She shrugged his arms from her back.
“Okay, Troy Donahue, they’re gone.”
The boy looked over at Gloria in the rising moonlight. Although her words were sharp and harsh, he could detect a hint of a smile on her lips. He shook his head.
“Don’t call me Troy Donahue; the guy’s a phony, just like his pals Kookie Byrnes and Fabian—a disgrace to rock and roll, if you ask me. Now how in the hell can you tell if they’ve moved past us or not? I’m beginning to think you’re not blind at all.”
Gloria tilted her head and smiled as she faced Dean. “Blind doesn’t mean deaf. They’re still wearing their raincoats; they squeak.”
“But they were sixty feet away,” Dean said as he took in her face in the brief flash of moonlight clearing the dark clouds above. Even tumbled and tossed, the girl was beginning to dig a deep trench in his soul.
“Come on,” she said as she stood from the grass and placed her hand on the broken wall. “Give me a boost.”
Dean shook his head but cupped together his two hands nonetheless and hefted
her light body up until she vanished over the low-slung adobe wall. “Blind, my ass,” he hissed as he quickly checked where the two security men were and then deftly and athletically followed Gloria.
She was waiting for Dean, and she held out her hand. He stared at it a moment and then looked around the abandoned winery and mission one last time.
“Come on. I can do a lot of things without sight, but running isn’t one of them.”
Dean took Gloria’s hand in his own and ran toward the mission’s front entranceway. He stopped and looked around the parking area, and when he was satisfied the two security men were in their guard shack, he pulled on her hand once again until they had run all the way across the gravel surface as quietly as possible. He saw the doorway and hoped it wasn’t locked as they ran up the thirteen steps and then without hesitation opened the door and entered. He pulled her against the wall and listened.
“I’ve never been here after dark,” he said as he gripped her hand tighter.
“I do it all the time,” she said, trying to catch her breath.
Dean shook his head as he caught himself watching her chest rise and fall in the small security light just inside the doorway.
“You mean you come here and get around security on your own?”
Gloria smiled as she pulled on him this time, leading him to the steel door that led to the subbasement of the ancient Spanish winery.
“Oh, you thought you were pulling off something impossible? Sorry to ruin your high-handed opinion of yourself.”
“Look,” he said as she stopped only a foot away from the steel door, “we can stop this right now. I can talk my father into most anything, even taking the police chief prisoner. We may never be able to prove your little ghost story anyway. We can stop right now and go back to what we do best.”
“What? Bebopping around town in your hot sports car, impressing all the admiring girls?” Gloria removed a set of keys from her sweater pocket and handed Dean the ring.
“Yeah, something like that,” he said. He used one of only two keys on the ring, guessing wrong in the first attempt. He tried the other key, and the lock popped free of the steel hasp. As the door opened, Dean looked down a long, very dark staircase, and he swallowed. “Of all the people I could have picked to fall for, I get Nancy Drew.”
For some reason, Gloria got mad and shook her head.
“What?” he asked as she angrily stepped by him and entered the stairwell.
“You can play games with the other girls in school, but don’t try to bullshit me, Dean Hadley. How many girls have you fallen for this month alone? Five? Six?”
“You don’t know me at all. Maybe if you could see instead of just hear the gossip, you would know I’m not like that. Most of the time anyway.”
“Well defended, Sparky,” she said as she started down the darkened stairs.
Dean stood rooted to the spot, as he had never in his life heard a girl talk like that before. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Is that what he got by declaring he had fallen for her?
Gloria hesitated at the bottom of the stairs and turned toward Dean, her dark glasses covering angry eyes. “Are you coming, or do you want to make peace with Daddy?”
“I’m sorry I opened my mouth. When we’re done, you can go back to hating the world, and I’ll go back to making my plans to get the hell out of Moreno and away from my father,” Dean said as he shook his head for the hundredth time that day. He turned on the light switch and saw that the stairwell was almost new in appearance. His nerves took a nosedive; something was wrong with this place.
He joined her at the bottom. Gloria used her hands in the darkness that was her world and made her way to a second door. This one was thick and extremely cold to the touch.
“Turn off the lights until we go inside.” She waited until she heard the click of the light panel.
“This so-called vault is in there?” he asked as he examined the door with a small penlight.
“Would you turn that off until we’re inside?” she said harshly under her breath as she grabbed the keys from his hand.
Again, Dean was amazed at her unseeing prowess. He watched her deftly place a key into a deadbolt locking mechanism. The door clicked.
“Are you sure there’s a vault in here?” Dean asked as he nervously turned and looked up the darkened staircase. “And we’re sure this has something to do with my father and yours?”
“Your father and my father installed the vault back in 1948,” she said with a grin as she stepped into the room. She was angry at her perception that Dean was playing games with her. She was quickly finding out that she was indeed capable of getting hurt by a boy.
“Look, this poor little blind girl act is getting a little—” Dean closed his eyes as the harsh lights inside the deep and dark basement flared to life, successfully stemming his insult about her blindness and his monetary disposition.
“Welcome to Alcatraz South,” she said as she stepped aside and allowed a full view into the basement. She moved quickly to the L bend and then vanished. Dean, looking at the strange equipment mostly covered by drop cloths, followed nervously. It reminded him of the old Universal film Frankenstein.
He stopped when he saw Gloria standing at the bend in the room with a large smile on her gorgeous face. Dean admired her momentarily until he saw what she intended for him to see.
The vault was as large and impressive as she’d said it would be. The lines running to it had deteriorated through the four years the lab had been shut down, but the tanks sitting atop looked new.
“This is the prison cell that holds the mysteries of life,” Gloria said, smiling widely as Dean’s silence told volumes about his amazement.
He gaped as he took in the tiled floor, the stainless steel desks, and the vault that dominated the room. Along the walls were many pieces of scientific equipment he had never seen before, all covered in a thick coat of dust. Oscilloscopes, x-ray machines, and other systems he could never identify until he saw them on television years later. Gloria left him standing with his mouth agape and returned to the large steel door. She closed it and stepped back until she heard a familiar hissing of air.
Beyond the bend in the room, Dean felt the pressure in his ears increase and then relax once the seal was made when Gloria started the air pumps in the back. The room, as she had claimed, was now completely soundproof to the outside world. She returned to Dean.
“What in the hell are our fathers up to placing this thing down here?” he asked as he moved ever closer to the giant stainless steel vault. “This is what they and that Nazi doctor were hiding?”
The vault was dead center of the back portion of the immense basement. It was a twenty-by-twenty-seven-foot rectangle and was reminiscent of a shoe box made of thick, hardened stainless steel. This advanced research lab was hidden from the small town and its occupants.
“I take it that your report would have centered around that thing? What’s in there?” he asked nervously as Gloria rejoined him. Dean looked down at the girl he had gone through the last four years of school with but had never exchanged two words with before last Friday’s afternoon class.
“Not riches, not gold, not the nuclear launch codes for the president to use against Nikita.”
“Then what?” he persisted as he took in the vault and its sliding windows covered in darker, thicker steel.
“Look, do you want to see this or not?”
Dean looked from the vault to an angry Gloria. “Yes, but you do know that this has little to do with a school report now, don’t you? I hate to break it to you, but this jive stuff is not right. We’re into some serious trouble.”
“Maybe I never really intended this to be written down in a school report. Maybe I just wanted to tell someone, anyone. Then you came along. Who better to tell than the son of the man responsible for placing it here?”
“May I remind you that my father wasn’t the only one to hide this thing down here. Your dad isn’t exactly above all of th
is.”
“I didn’t know that for sure until today.” She bit her lip and angrily shook her head. “No, that’s a lie; I knew it all along. You’re right; they are all involved, and we probably are in some serious trouble.”
Gloria felt her way to a dark corner where he couldn’t see what she was doing. He heard her shuffling things around, and a moment later, she reappeared with a small box. He watched her place it on the floor at the vault’s giant door. She placed a hand on the cold steel and patted it lovingly as she opened the top of the small portable phonograph.
“Oh, are we going to listen to records now, just the two of us? I think the kids in school will gossip about this.”
“Look, I’m sorry for acting like a bitch to you, but please don’t insult my intelligence by declaring undying love. I don’t like being hurt.”
Dean stepped up to her and gently touched her shoulder. As she stood, he kissed her. Gloria remained frozen as he stepped back. Then she reached out and pulled him close, and they kissed deeply. They finally parted.
“By the way, if you’re lying to me, I’ll haunt you for the rest of your life.”
“Deal,” he said with a winning smile. His stomach did backflips as Gloria knelt beside the small black box. “I doubt there’s anything in there that will save us from our fathers’ wrath.”
“Oh, ye fools of limited imagination,” she said mockingly. She cranked the handle on the small phonograph, winding the interior spring. “I started with a battery-operated player, but I was going through batteries until my dad thought evil things about me.” She giggled, and Dean didn’t understand her advanced and bawdy humor. He was starting to believe he knew nothing about this girl until his mouth fell open as he finally caught the joke, smiling despite his growing concern at the way she spoke outside of the classroom.
In the Still of the Night--The Supernaturals II Page 36