Dominic stretched and swung his legs from the bed. He glanced around the cramped quarters. There was a desk against one wall, and a dresser against the opposite one. His bed was narrow, no more than twin sized, with one nightstand to the left. The flat screen TV Hunt had secured for him sat atop the dresser, a modern anomaly in the strangely dated quarters. A light fixture above the bed provided the room's only light. Since he was underground there was no window, no natural light. It reminded Dominic of a jail cell.
None of this really worried him. He had stayed in much worse places. What did bother him was the quarantine area, and the abomination it contained. Living in such close proximity to that creature gave him the creeps. He hadn’t slept well, waking in fits throughout the night, his mind wandering to the creature in the cell. Even though he knew that the cell was secure, he could not help but imagine the worst. He was alone down here, and defenseless. If that monster escaped he was done for. Not that Hunt cared. Dominic’s plead to stay topside, in the motel out by the docks, had fallen on deaf ears. So what if there was a terrifying beast steps from his quarters. Rules were rules. Dominic knew that he was just a small part of a larger whole. And like all parts, he could be replaced if anything went wrong.
Dominic sighed and crossed the room.
On the desk was the file folder containing everything he needed to know about his assignment. He had spent some time browsing it the previous day. What he had gleaned so far was that this facility had been a Naval research outpost back in the sixties and seventies and had conducted some unusual experiments. There was a project to enhance the stamina and durability of men engaged in active combat, specifically sailors and special operations personnel. The program ran for several years before an incident claimed the lives of eight men and caused the Navy to shelve the research. Whatever they were cooking up down here backfired on them. The facility was shuttered, the experiments put in long-term storage, and the place was forgotten about. Eventually the entire base was decommissioned and a town grew up, blissfully unaware of the secret labs, and dangerous experiments, that lay below their feet. But nothing stays hidden forever, and with advances in technology, and new threats both overseas and domestic, the old experiments drew interest from certain factions of the government who saw the potential for a military edge. That was when the Navy decided to open up the old tunnel. They sent in crews to blast through the rock falls and build a new road. Shackleton would once again be connected by road to the outside world, all so that they could whisk the contents of the labs away in trucks without anyone being any the wiser. And then a couple of black market arms dealers found out about the place and decided to cherry pick it for themselves.
Dominic turned from the folder and strolled across the corridor to what was once the communal shower facility. He picked a stall, and washed up, then shuffled to the mess hall down the corridor. There was a full kitchen here, and to his surprise, the place was well stocked with all sorts of fresh and frozen food. Dominic busied himself preparing a hearty breakfast of eggs and bacon, with toast. The aroma of cooking meat made him forget his discomfort for a few moments. He closed his eyes and focused on the smell of the bacon, at once feeling less isolated. It didn’t take much to imagine that he was in a roadside diner somewhere, the place full of lively conversation, a friendly waitress bringing him coffee refills and calling him honey. When he opened his eyes the illusion was shattered. He was still in his buried solitary confinement, and there was still a monster in a cell down the corridor. Bacon was a gift from the Gods, but it couldn't fix everything.
With a sigh he lifted the meat from the pan and slid two fried eggs onto a white porcelain plate, then sat down to eat.
19
At eleven-thirty in the morning Decker left his apartment, rode down in the elevator, and emerged on the fifth floor of the town of Shackleton. He stepped into the corridor and made his way to Mina’s apartment. He knocked on the door twice, two short sharp raps, and waited for an answer.
For a while there was no sign of movement, but then there were footsteps on the other side of the door, followed by a deadbolt being drawn back. A moment later he was face to face with Mina.
“It’s you.” She looked surprised. “The monster hunter.”
“Could you just call me John,” Decker said. “Monster hunter is so formal.”
“Whatever you say, John,” Mina said, a smirk crossing her lips. “How did you find me anyway?”
“It wasn’t hard,” Decker replied. “There’s a directory on the coffee table in my quarters. It has the name and apartment number of everyone in town. You have the distinction of being the only Mina.”
“Ah. I forgot about that thing.” Mina nodded. “For a town that places so much value on solitude they sure do make it hard to keep your life private.” She raised an eyebrow. “So what can I do for you, John?”
“I was hoping you might be able to spare me a little of your time. I could use a tour guide, someone with a little inside knowledge.”
“Isn’t that what you have Hayley Marsh for?”
“I’m not sure Hayley is the right person for this job. She has a slight conflict of interest.”
“Let me guess, that jackass Sheriff Wilder.”
“Got it in one. I met him last night and he wasn’t exactly happy to see me. He made it very clear that I was to stay out of his way, not interfere with his investigation.”
“Of what, the maintenance man?” Mina’s eyes sparkled. “I heard about that.”
“News travels fast around here.”
“We live in a tower block on the edge of an ice field in the middle of nowhere. It’s hard to keep anything a secret for long, especially something like that. Besides, I run the local paper, I have sources.” She grinned. “Did you see the body?”
“Unfortunately.” Decker nodded. “That’s kind of why I’m here.”
“Awesome. You’d better come in.” Mina glanced down the hallway. “People love to gossip in this place, and I get the feeling that whatever you need from me, you don’t want Wilder finding out about it.”
“Right.” Decker stepped into the apartment and looked around, taking in the sparse furnishings. There was a loveseat, a single chair and a coffee table piled high with books. There were at least thirty volumes stacked one on top of another like some literary Tower of Babel, with titles as diverse as Ancient Mayan Beliefs and Rituals and Cryptids in the Modern World. Decker was surprised. “You have some pretty heavy reading there.”
“Yeah.” Mina glanced toward the books. “I like to read.”
“I see.” Decker’s eyes lingered on the pile of books. “You live here alone?”
“Yep. I used to live here with my mother. She died last year.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Decker thought he saw a flash of sadness cross Mina’s face, but then it was gone.
“Thanks,” Mina said. “So you still haven’t told me how I can help you.”
“I need a tour guide, someone who can get me where I need to go without raising too many eyebrows,” Decker replied. “I have a feeling that Wilder is not going to be much help, and I don’t want my movements getting back to him.”
“I can get you around,” Mina said. “I know the tower like the back of my hand.”
“Not only the tower, but everywhere else too, the whole place.” Decker cautioned. “The basement, the tunnel, everything. There will be some moderate risk involved.”
“I can handle myself.” Mina paused for a moment and then spoke again. “So if I help you, will you give me an interview for the town paper?”
“I don’t know.”
“Please?” Mina pleaded. “I know you got some bad press over the loup garou thing, but this will be different.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I’ll be kind, I promise. Besides, if it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t even be here. You owe me.”
“Alright.” Decker sighed. “But after.”
After?”
“Onc
e I’ve done what I need to.”
“Fine. Afterward. It’ll make a better piece then anyway. More complete.” Mina looked pleased with herself. “Now where can I take you?”
“The basement,” Decker said. “I have a hunch that I want to investigate.”
20
Five minutes later Decker and Mina arrived at the elevator on the fifth floor. As soon as he entered the car, Decker noticed that the buttons for the basement levels were not lit up. They were also unresponsive. Someone, most likely the sheriff, had used the override to disable basement level access. That meant they could only ride down as far as the lobby, and then they would have to find an alternate route from there.
Decker figured that would not be too hard since he already knew there were stairs leading down, and he was sure Mina would know exactly where to find them, which she did.
After disembarking the elevator Mina led him through the lobby, past an ornamental fountain that looked like it had long ago ceased to produce any water and down a tiled corridor that housed a grocery store, a chapel, and two or three other businesses. Only the grocery store was open. As they passed Decker caught sight of shelves stocked with canned goods, bread and a smattering of cleaning products. The whole place could not have occupied more than three hundred square feet. A man with graying hair and a moustache was perched at the small counter with a magazine spread out before him. He looked up, hopeful, as they went by, but then dropped his gaze back to the article he was reading when he realized they were not coming in. Decker wondered how many hours the man spent alone in his store, waiting for a customer to stop in and buy a gallon of milk or a carton of bleach. It must be a lonely existence and one that held little promise for the man of ever earning more than a pittance given the small population of the town.
When they reached the end of the corridor Mina came to a stop next to a metal door with a small window set into it. She looked around to make sure they were not being observed and then tried the handle.
The door opened.
“Unlocked,” she said, stepping through the open doorway. “Come on. This stairwell spans the entire height of the building. You could climb from the sub-basement, all the way to the roof, from here if you wanted to.”
“Perfect.” Decker slipped through the door and let it shut behind him, being careful to hold it so that it clicked closed rather than slammed. He looked up and was suddenly thankful that they were only climbing down two sets of stairs, and not going in the other direction. “Lead the way.”
Mina nodded and started down the stairs. They reached the main basement level but she kept going. After another two flights of stairs they found themselves face to face with a second metal door. This one had yellow crime scene tape strung across it and a notice warning people not to enter. It wasn’t the tape that made Decker’s heart sink; it was the shiny new padlock affixed to a bracket holding the door closed.
“Looks like the sheriff beat us to it,” Mina said, a look of disappointment on her face.
“Just great.” Decker leaned against the wall. He wiped his brow and closed his eyes for a moment, the familiar throb of a tension headache building between his temples. Or was it exhaustion? It was hard to tell. “That tears it. There’s no way Wilder is going to give me access to the basement. He damn near threw me out last night with his bare hands.”
“We can still get in there,” Mina said. “We can just bust the lock off. It shouldn’t take too much. It looks like a cheap piece of crap.”
“I don’t think that would be a very good idea.” Decker shook his head. “Besides, if Wilder sees the broken lock he’ll know who the most likely suspect is.”
“So what then?”
“I don’t know. I go to Hayley, get her to talk to the sheriff and force him to give me access to the crime scene.”
“Will that work?”
“Beats me,” Decker said. “My guess would be no. Wilder was pretty clear last night that he had no intention of working with me, and I don’t think the town council can force him to.”
“So do you want to tell me what your hunch is?”
“What?”
“You said you had a hunch. Since we can’t get in there to follow up on it you might as well tell me now.”
“It’s more a theory than a hunch,” Decker said. “I was thinking about the attack on the maintenance man, and how it looked like the perpetrator was a wild animal, but that didn’t make any sense.”
“Why not?”
“Because of the location of the attack. How could a large animal have gotten into the basement in the first place? It obviously didn’t go down in the elevator, and the only other way in or out is through this stairwell. If it did enter and escape that way, where did it go? It would be trapped in the tower where it would be spotted in a heartbeat.”
“So you think there is another way into that basement,” Mina said, a tinge of anticipation in her voice.
“Exactly,” Decker said. “It’s the only logical explanation. There must be a third way in to the basement, an entry point that has gone unnoticed.”
“It’s a good thing you came to me.” Mina grinned. “I can show you exactly where that third entrance is.”
“What? Where?” Decker exclaimed. He was right all along, there was another way in. “You have to take me there.”
“Not now. It’s not safe,” Mina said in a quiet voice. “Later.”
“Fine. When and where?” Decker asked.
“Meet me in the lobby at midnight and I’ll take you there.” She turned back toward the stairs. “Wear something warm and bring a flashlight.”
“Alright.” Decker was itching to press her for more information, but he also wanted to make his escape from the stairwell before they were discovered. “Midnight it is. Until then we should keep a low profile. We don’t want the good sheriff to get suspicious.”
21
Mina Parkinson hurried back to her apartment on Floor 5. She felt a tingle of excitement, a feeling she hadn’t experienced for a long time. She was only nineteen, but at times she felt closer to sixty. That was what the town of Shackleton would do if you let it. It sucked the life from you, fed on you until you were nothing more than a dried up husk. But that wasn’t the only reason for her recent lack of enthusiasm. Since her mother died she had come to realize that there were more important things in life than fun, like keeping a roof over her head, paying bills, buying groceries. The meager amount of money in her mother’s bank account hadn’t made it past the first three months and then things got bad, real bad, especially since writing for the newspaper wasn’t a paying gig.
Before she died, her mother held down a job in the town library, which paid just enough to put food on the table, pay the rent, and keep the lights on, but not much else. Now that her mother was gone, Mina needed a paying job. Desperate, she took part time work in the only place that was hiring, Harbor Pacific Seafoods, a warehouse on the edge of town that gutted and cleaned whatever the local fisherman brought in, and sold it to a plant in Anchorage to be turned into pre-packaged frozen seafood. It was a nasty job, but it paid enough cash to keep her going.
When she arrived back at her apartment, Mina grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator and went into the living room.
When she entered, however, she stopped, alarmed. Something didn’t feel right. She glanced around the room and could not see anything amiss, yet the room felt different. It was then, as her eyes settled on the stack of books, that she realized what was wrong.
The books had been moved.
It looked like they had been knocked over and then piled back up, only now they were in the wrong order. The book she was reading, which had been on top, was now three volumes down.
She stopped, nervous, her eyes darting around the room to see if anything else was disturbed, but it all looked just as she had left it.
Maybe she was imagining things.
Or maybe Decker had browsed through them when he was there and she hadn’t notice
d.
She decided that must be it. What other explanation could there be? She turned and headed toward the couch, book in hand. As she did so, there was a sound, almost imperceptible, from the other side of the room.
It sounded like a light footfall.
She spun around, her heart thudding in her chest. But the room was empty. No one was there.
She breathed a sigh of relief, and was about to chalk the whole thing up to her overactive imagination, when she noticed the front door, which she was sure she had closed.
Now it was open, just a crack.
A shiver of fear ran up her spine.
Was there someone in the apartment when she got home, someone who was looking through her stuff? Were they still there, hiding, watching her as she entered, waiting for an opportunity to slip out unnoticed?
She hurried across the room and pushed the door closed, then drew the deadbolt and put the chain on. She leaned against the back of the door, and surveyed the apartment.
Suddenly she didn’t feel excited anymore.
Instead she was uneasy, on edge.
In all the years she had lived in Shackleton, she’d never felt unsafe, but right now she did. It was too much of a coincidence that this happened when she got involved with John Decker. Someone, or something, was running around killing people and here she was jumping headlong into the middle of it. She wondered if she was getting herself into a situation more dangerous than she realized.
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