He had even tried contacting Jimmy's editor, but he had refused to talk to him. He hadn't given up though, and had tried to call just this morning before he had flown out of Washington. His call was put through, but all he had gotten was a steady busy signal at his home, and when he had called his work number, a business like secretary at the paper informed Frank, in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, that Jimmy had left just the day before on an assignment. When he had asked her where he had gone to, her voice had gone even more business-like, and she had told him the paper did not give out that sort of information. Just when Frank had been about to try a different, more tactful approach to find out what was going on, she had hung up on him. The whole thing weighed heavily upon him. He had vacation time coming so he had taken it. He had three weeks to figure out what had happened to Jimmy and what was going on that was so secretive that everyone had decided to keep their mouths shut.
Frank inhaled deeply from the cigarette, and then tossed it out the open window.
That was why he was here. None of it figured. The base itself had thousands of acres of land, so why did they need more? Why the caves? And what the hell had happened to Jimmy? After nearly a week of hearing nothing from Jimmy at all, he had called in the middle of the night. Awakened Frank from a sound sleep: That had turned out to be the last time Frank had heard from him, and that last conversation with Jimmy had been a hurried one, late night, cryptic, Jimmy had sounded worried.
He had located an employee from the new base that had given him some information he wasn't sure he should believe. The new base, according to this source, was a top secret virus facility. They were working on a virus that could build a better soldier and they had made a huge breakthrough a few months before. Finding a compound that could help the average soldier survive much longer without food and water in combat conditions. He had kept the kid talking most of the night, doing nothing more than buying the beer at a busy downtown bar that was geared toward the nearby base as most of them were.
Most of what Jimmy was told sounded unbelievable to him, but he had passed it on to Frank anyway. The kid had even come up with a code number for the Virus, SS-V2765. Frank had jotted it down on a pad, the rest of the conversation he had filed away in his head.
The Watertown paper had come out, just last week, with a long article that had been picked up by the wire service. Frank had read it, and wondered why they were suddenly going public about the caves. The Army was now saying they intended to convert the old caves into a large underground storage area. Frank already knew that from the Syracuse paper though, and he didn't believe it was that simple. The rest of the story was bullshit, as far as Frank was concerned, and actually didn't say a much of anything. Certainly nothing he hadn't already known or suspected. The article actually seemed to serve only one purpose, and that was to mention that they were doing something with the caves.
Why would they feel the need to do that? Frank wondered. Had the Army found out that he and Jimmy had been digging into the base? Is that why Jimmy was nowhere to be found? Had they scared him off somehow?
Frank didn't believe it was possible to scare Jimmy off of anything he was determined to find out about, so if they hadn't scared him off, what the hell had happened? It all raised a lot more questions than it answered, and once he had lost track of Jimmy it had made it personal to him. He needed to know what had happened to him, so here he was cruising down the interstate, twenty-eight hundred miles from home, to find out. And even that had not been an easy thing to accomplish.
The airlines were running without reliable satellite communications. Apparently most of the world was, and it touched on every aspect of his life. How fast he could get information: Where he could get it from. How, or even whether he could book a flight, and when he might expect to get one back.
Frank supposed it had everything to do with DX2379R, an errant meteorite that was supposed to come very close to earth later tonight or early tomorrow. All the best minds said it would pass so far away that it would be nothing but a tiny blip in the history books, and he had too much on his mind to be concerned with that too. After all, if it were going to pass too close or hit and cause damage, they would know it. It was yet another case of overreaction. The cable news channels had so much competition that they tended to blow all the news out of proportion. So much so that the real things going on in the world were often overlooked entirely.
That was how they had nearly ended up with a joke for president a few years back. Inattention to the real things. The countries Entertain Me attitude. The other side effect was what he was witnessing right now. Everything slowed to a crawl. The internet superhighway went down, or clogged. Satellites became unreliable, or switched offline when they overloaded. Like cars passing a bad accident on the highway: Everyone had to slow down to get a look.
His hand reached automatically for the cigarette pack on the dash and just as abruptly stopped. I've got to cut back, he thought, that's the second pack today. He wrestled with the urge for a full thirty seconds and then gave in. To hell with it, he told himself, I'll have plenty of time to quit once I get settled in at Fort Drum. In fact, I'll probably be so busy that I won't have time to smoke at all, he lied to himself. Once again the lighter hit the tray, and Frank settled back into the seat, mentally ticking over what he knew, or suspected, about the caves.
As Frank neared the exit for Fort Drum, he mulled the possibilities over in his clouded mind. He had just flipped the turn signal on to exit the interstate, when he felt a shimmy begin at the rear of the car. It quickly turned to a deep pounding vibration as he slowed the small car and pulled to the side of the road.
Frank climbed out of the small cramped car, and, walking to the rear, stared down at the flat tire that he knew was there. Muttering under his breath, "Damn rental car," he returned to the front; retrieved the keys, and unlocked the trunk to search for the spare he hoped was there. It wasn't.
Frank locked the small car, and taking his laptop bag with him, set off in the direction of the exit to find a service station.
Joe Miller
Two miles away, Joe Miller tossed a steel clipboard onto the passenger seat of his Camaro as he pulled into the long driveway at 6620 Main street, in Fort Drum.
Joe hadn't seen the old brick house since three weeks before, when he had been sent out as part of the clean-up crew from Bud Farling's real estate agency. The house had looked horrible then. The windows and doors had been boarded up, and the now graceful grounds had been choked with weeds.
The old house looks damn good, he thought. He hadn't been there himself for most of the work as Bud had kept him busy with his other properties. Joe tended to get most of Bud's work, probably due to the fact that he was dependable, and showed up every day ready to work. To Bud, Joe knew, that meant a great deal. A low whistle escaped his lips as he stared at the imposing estate, which had always seemed so forbidding before.
The van that he usually drove was in the shop for the third time in as many weeks, so he had come in his own car. This time it was the transmission, and Bud had been downright pissed about it. Not pissed at Joe though, the van was old, and, Bud had told him, he supposed he'd have to buy a new one soon.
When Bud had asked if Joe minded driving his own car out to the house to put in the locks, Joe had told him he didn't mind at all, and that considering the way the van was constantly breaking down lately, he felt better taking his own car. At least that way he wouldn't end up walking like he had last week when the van had broken down in the middle of nowhere.
Joe Miller actually had a large amount of expertise in home repair, and it had always seemed to him that all the different aspects of it had been easy to learn. He had made Bud a lot of money, and he worked as a sub-contractor so Bud could work him as many hours as he wanted without having to pay overtime.
The arrangement worked out well for both of them. It meant Bud could count on Joe, and because of that he paid him well.
Joe had no family, so even if Bud
called in the middle of the night with some emergency at one of his properties, it wasn't a big deal for Joe to get dressed and take care of it.
Joe retrieved the new locks from the seat and headed towards the front door. The keys had already been mailed to the man who was renting the property, Bud had explained.
"Just remove our master locks, and swap 'em out for these," Bud had said, "And oh, don't forget to bring the keys and the master locks back with you tomorrow."
Joe had lost a set of the master locks a year ago, and Bud had never let him forget it.
Whenever Bud had a crew working on a property, the master locks were used. That allowed everyone to come and go whenever they needed to, and all the tradesmen that worked for Bud had a master key. It had come in handy on several occasions.
The keys fit all the rental properties Bud owned, or managed, as well, and Joe couldn't count the times that had come in handy to him. Half the time when there was a problem with an apartment, it was usually reported by one of the other tenants, and nine times out of ten, the tenant who lived in the apartment wasn't home. The master locks solved that problem nicely.
Joe reached the door; slipped the master key into the lock, and entered the house. He squinted in the gloom, peering cautiously inside at the shadowy hallway.
The old house had long had a reputation of being haunted. Joe didn't necessarily believe it, but he had always found the old house to be unnerving.
It still seems spooky in here, Joe thought as he stepped into the entrance way. Stupid though letting this old house get to me. He couldn't explain why he suddenly felt nervous about entering the house, and he glanced nervously back out the doorway at the driveway, where the Camaro sat gleaming brightly in the late afternoon sun.
The light stupid, he reminded himself, turn on the lights.
He turned his attention back to the hall, and let his searching fingers locate the switch, and with a small push of the old button-style switch the lights came on.
Soft shards of light flickered across the walls of the entrance way from the large chandelier, suspended from the old tin ceiling in the middle of the entrance way. Joe carefully edged the door shut with the heel of one scuffed work boot, and stared child-like around the room as the splashing patterns of light danced on the dark mahogany of the walls.
The wood panels reached more than twelve feet to the old tin ceilings, and intricate flowing lines covered the tin panels in an ornate flower design.
The dark walls were divided with carefully scrolled moldings, which broke the walls into squared sections, and a matching mahogany stairway curved away from the dark gray marble flooring, towards the upper reaches of the house.
He could make out the darkened upper floor where the staircase ended, and a small balcony that looked down over the entrance way.
To the left of the staircase, at the end of the long entrance way, massive double doors were set into the wall. A smaller single door led off to the right, directly across from those doors, which was the kitchen area, he knew.
To his immediate right, was another set of double doors, and directly across from that a graceful arch led into the living area. He knew that the doors set into the wall at the end of the hall led into a formal dining area, which also had a small door that opened into the kitchen area. The doors to his right opened into a large den, with book shelves from floor to ceiling, and a massive stone fireplace.
Joe had seen it before, when it had been stuffed full of the dusty old furniture that had been left in the house when the owner had died. The house had been tied up in probate court for years, Bud had explained, and so everything had been left pretty much untouched.
He hadn't been here when the final cleaning had been done however; he hadn't seen just how imposing, and elegant, the house actually was, without the dust and dirt that had covered it, and to him the transformation was astounding.
Joe carefully set the cardboard box containing the new locks on the floor by the front door. He decided that he wanted to take one more look at the house before he put in the locks. He walked down to the far end of the dimly lit entrance way, pushed open the double doors at the end of the hall that led into the dining area, and sent his left hand skittering across the wall for the switch. Sparse light from the hallway fell through the doorway and beyond.
Suddenly, a silver flash swept from the darkness towards him. His hand was still looking for the light switch, and his mind did not immediately register what it was.
...WHAT? His mind cried out in alarm as his eyes watched the shining flat arc sweep towards him.
...A knife? ...At me? ...Why?
"Not real," he muttered aloud backing away, but his hands came away from his chest with bloody drops clinging to them. His eyes watched as a disembodied hand plunged the knife deeply into his chest again.
Hand, he thought... Is that my Blood?
The hand with the knife flickered quickly out of sight into the darkness, only to reappear a split second later and plunge deeply into his chest once more.
KNIFE ...KNIFE ...KNIFE! His mind screamed.
Two men stepped from the shadows. The larger one still held the knife threateningly in his hand as Joe slumped to the floor.
NO... He tried to say, but found he could not.
Strong hands closed around his wrists and were joined by others as his bleeding body was lifted from the floor. He tried to scream, but he found he could make no sounds. His chest felt as though a large boulder rested on it.
It doesn't actually hurt, he thought, but they could have killed me, and I can't breathe well, and, WHY?
His chest hitched once and stopped.
Can't breathe, he thought, and next... The bastards did kill me! They did! They did...
He seemed to be falling into a dark void, and he could not see, but he could hear, he realized.
They're scared, he thought, they're, Scared. Oh, isn't that funny. They killed me, and they're scared.
He could hear them talking in hushed tones.
"Do you think he's dead?" One asked.
"Maybe," the other replied.
I'm not! Joe tried to scream.
"Well he sure as shit ain't breathing..."
"That don't make him dead, you idiot," the other one, with the deeper voice replied, "I read where it takes four minutes for the brain to die, he could start breathing again or somthin'."
"Well..." The one with the whiny voice began.
"Shut the hell up and let's get going," the one with the deeper voice said, cutting him off.
Who said that, Joe wondered as if it made a difference? Are they picking me up? Why? He couldn't tell if they were picking him up or not. In fact, he couldn't feel anything, he realized, and it was beginning not to matter to him. Is this what it feels like to be dead? He wondered.
"Are you sure he's dead?"
"I told you I don't know."
"Well the bastard’s looking right at me is all, and it bugs me," the smaller man whined.
Joe knew that they had to be lying, because he couldn't see them. I can't be dead 'cause I can hear, and I can't be staring at them, 'cause I can't see anything, Joe thought as he tried to open his eyes.
"He ain't fuckin' dead! He ain't! He ain't..."
The panicked scream was brought about by the flicker of his eyelids as Joe had tried to open his already open eyes, and was cut short by a sharp slap delivered across the face of the terrified smaller man, that Joe heard perfectly well.
"Shut the fuck up, Eddie, just shut up ya fuckin' baby."
Eddie shut up.
"I stabbed him nine fuckin' times," Bobby Lawton, the bigger man insisted, "he's dead already... Okay?"
Nine Fuckin' Times? Nine fuckin' Times, you're dead already, Joe's mind informed him.
Joe felt nothing during the trip through the kitchen to the car, which was parked at the rear of the house.
"Open the damn trunk," Bobby said.
They had carried the body out the back door, to where they had
parked the Cadillac earlier.
"Open the damn thing...It's not locked, just lift up the lid," the voice continued as Joe listened.
I gotta tell them, Joe thought. I ain't dead, and they can't put me in the friggin' trunk.
HEY! Joe tried to scream, I ain't dead, and you can't put me in the trunk!...I'm claustrophobic, I can't stand tight places!
But his lips would not move, and his throat would make no sound. His lungs could pull no air into his body to make his throat work, he realized.
I've got to replace the locks, he reasoned, please... Please? He pleaded as the trunk lid slammed home.
Fuck you, he thought, just fuck you, I ain't dead! He was tired though. Very tired it seemed.
Joe Miller did not feel the bumpy ride to the old Jefferey’s farm, and he did not feel the dirt and stone striking his face as he lay at the bottom of the shallow grave. Joe was dead. Oh yes, he was truly dead indeed.
Eddie pushed dirt quickly into the grave they had hastily dug when they had reached the farm. Back at the house, after they had put the body in the trunk, Bobby had gone back inside to clean up the mess while Eddie had gone out front to bring the light green Camaro the guy had been driving out back. The guy had looked awful young to Eddie. He hadn't looked old enough to be a reporter. Either way he was going into a hole. The second one in as many weeks, but Tetto, Alice as Bobby liked to call her behind her back, paid cash. She gave them the details both times. If her facts were wrong that was her problem. This one was going right into the ground next to the other reporter from last week. And now here he was filling the hole. They had a regular little cemetery going on up here in Jefferey’s back forty.
Probably went to college, his mind told him, college kids get all them easy jobs anyhow. Probably how he got the job.
Earth's Survivors: box set Page 169