Approaching Thunder Road, she slowed to make the turn toward Spirit Canyon. “They’ll be back,” she told Eric.
“You think so?”
“I feel it in my bones. This is big, Eric, and it’s going to get bigger.”
He laughed. “What happened to the objective scientist in you?”
She smiled. “She’s there, but I feel like a kid in a candy store. Don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” As he spoke, he glanced over his shoulder. “Stop the car!”
She stopped so fast, she almost ran off the road. “What?” she cried. “Did I hit something?”
“Look!” Eric pointed to the northwest. “Look!”
She craned her head around and gasped. One of the fiery teal disks hovered low over Olive Mesa. “It might be a reflection,” Alex said as she made a U-turn, “but I doubt it.”
Eric grabbed the video cam and began taping as they tore down the road. “Keep your eyes on the road!” he yelled when she ran two tires into a rut. “I’m getting this. Just drive!”
She did. They covered two miles in as many minutes, and the disk never moved. Drawing even with the mesa and the UFO, she searched for a jeep trail and finally spotted one. “Hang on!” she cried, and swung the wheel hard right.
“Shit!” Eric screeched, clutching the Minicam to his chest. “You almost put my eye out!”
“Hang on, we’re almost to the mesa.”
It loomed so close now that they could no longer see the UFO, though they didn’t see it fly off, either. Alex drove maniacally, hitting her head on the roof of the Bronco’s cab as the trail grew more rutted and dimmer.
“Watch out!” Eric cried as she narrowly swerved around a stone in the road. “Slow down! There’s another one!”
She braked just before hitting the second stone, throwing them both forward. The first rock could have taken out a tire, but this one couldn’t be passed. It was huge, and had to have been dragged there to block the trail.
“Damn!” Alex glanced at the roadsides, but even the Bronco couldn’t maneuver here. She turned off the engine and pocketed the keys, then grabbed the camera and hopped out of the truck. “Let’s go!”
Eric, video cam on his shoulder, jumped out and joined her as they trotted toward the mesa. “We’re never going to be able to get to the top of that thing.”
“Come on,” she called, her side already aching, “there’s bound to be a trail here somewhere.” She sprinted ahead, breathing hard, exhilarated, despite the heat.
At the base of the mesa, she ran to the right a hundred feet, then, finding nothing, turned around and jogged left. “Here!”
The trailhead was hidden in a fold of mountainside invisible from the road. “Hurry!”
She tried to trot up the steep trail, but soon slowed, lungs aching from the exertion and the dust. Eric caught up with her and they kept going, gasping and panting. She wished they’d grabbed a canteen as well as the cameras.
“The UFO’s probably gone by now,” Eric panted.
“Even if it is, it was practically on the ground. It may have left marks.”
Twenty long, hot minutes passed before the winding path finally brought them to the summit. Alex stepped onto the plateau. “You were right,” she told Eric breathlessly as he joined her. “It’s gone.”
“Let’s rest a minute.”
“Yes, let’s.” She was exhausted. At home she ran a mile every morning, but it hadn’t prepared her for this. She took a few more steps farther onto the mesa, then shielded her eyes with her hand, squinting at something poking up dead center. She barely heard Eric’s “What?” as she ran toward the center of the mesa.
On the ground lay a man’s brown shirt, sandals, and a baseball cap, nothing more, but the items looked like they hadn’t been there long. “Eric!” she ordered. “Stay back a second. Someone’s been here.” She scanned for footprints and found a few in the red dust, a man’s, of average size. Only three were very visible—the desert wind had already erased the rest.
“Aliens?” Eric asked in an amused voice.
She grimaced. “No.” After she took photos of the clothing and the remaining footprints, she gestured Eric forward. “Look at this!” she said, picking up the shirt. She held it near her face and sniffed. “It smells of Aramis. Whoever was here, just left.” Next she picked up the cap and detected a faint clean odor of some sort of hair preparation.
“Alex, do you know how weird it is to sniff a stranger’s clothing?”
She looked up and saw he had the Minicam trained on her. “The clothes haven’t been here long,” she said to the camera with all the dignity she could muster, then went on to detail her finds before placing them back on the ground.
“You aren’t going to take them?” Eric asked, still sounding amused. “They might belong to an abductee!”
“If they do,” she said dryly, “then he’ll be wanting them back. Come on, let’s see if there are any landing marks.”
They searched for half an hour, but found nothing, and at last hiked back down the side of the mesa.
44
James Robert Sinclair
“PROPHET SINCLAIR?” TIM DRESNER CALLED, KNOCKING ON THE door. “It’s fifteen minutes until taping.”
“I need an extra ten minutes,” Sinclair called, amazed by his own calm. “Tell the choir to entertain the congregation, will you, Tim?”
“Uh, yes, Prophet. No problem.”
Only a few minutes before, Sinclair had opened his eyes to find himself sitting against the tunnel door in his bedroom. He still sat there now, trying to comprehend what had happened, trying to remember it all, wondering if he was going mad.
“I shall lead them to heaven,” he said, a vague memory returning.
He rose, his sore knees protesting, and walked across the room to the mirrored closet. “My God,” he said, seeing that his baseball cap and his shirt were gone. “It really happened.” Red dust coated him from head to toe, and looking behind him, he saw that he’d left red footprints on the powder blue carpet.
He remembered going to Olive Mesa to meditate on the previous night’s vision, but he had no recollection of the return trip. The angel had told him to look into its eyes. He could remember nothing after that. Did I look?
He thought he hadn’t because he was sure he would have remembered. Look at me and you shall see the truth, the Voice had told him.
He had proven himself a coward but had been forgiven, perhaps promised another chance.
He stared at his disheveled, filthy body in the mirror and shook his head. “Maybe you’re having a nervous breakdown, my friend,” he told his image. “You’re believing your own sermons.”
But as hard as it was for a lifelong skeptic to accept, he did believe in God now. He knew. He didn’t know how, but he knew.
Time was wasting, but before taking a shower, he walked back to the tunnel door and opened it. Stepping inside, he saw that his electric cart was missing. He had walked back. He couldn’t believe that, though, because his back didn’t hurt and he would have had to remain bent over for the entire distance.
Then how did I get back? Amazed, he felt his heart swell with joy: This was further proof that something miraculous had happened to him.
“Prophet?” Tim’s voice carried through the locked entry door. “Are you ready?”
“Tim.” Full of joy, full of love, he walked to the door and opened it wide.
Tim’s jaw worked as he took in the sight of his dusty, half-clothed Prophet, but no words came out. Sinclair laid one gentle hand on the shoulder of his aide.
“Prophet?” Dresner murmured, his eyes wide.
“Tim. Go to the church and tell them there will be no taping today. What I have to say is far too important for that. Tonight’s sermon will be broadcast live.”
“Y-yes, Prophet.”
“I have spoken with God Himself. Tell the Apostles to go forth and spread the word. Tell them to rejoice.”
“Yes, sir.”
Sinclair closed the door softly.
The time is at hand and you shall lead them. The words echoed softly through his mind.
45
Henry Marquay
THE TEA AND TOAST HE’D EATEN AN HOUR AGO SEEMED TO SET well, and Henry Marquay decided to get dressed and go to work. Pushing himself up out of the easy chair in front of the television set, he pulled his bathrobe tighter around him and padded through the darkened living room toward the bedroom.
The place was a mess, and he told himself that when Madge came back, she’d have his hide for letting it get so bad. All the dishes were dirty, piled on the counter and in cold murky water in the sink, and his clothes were everywhere, all of them dirty. Yes, Madge would have a fit.
And he couldn’t wait.
He tried to face facts, tried to tell himself that his wife of thirty-five years wouldn’t be returning, that something had happened to her, but he couldn’t continue to live and think such things. Last night, while he’d still been running to the toilet every ten minutes, he’d told himself that Madge might be dead, and his mood had turned so black that he’d gone into the bedroom and taken his revolver from the nightstand drawer. He had held it up to his mouth, hand trembling, but two things stopped him from pulling the trigger: the hope that Madge might still be alive, and his gut clenching down in another attack of diarrhea.
Now he changed into his work clothes—a miner’s outfit made up of Levi’s, red plaid shirt, cap, and boots—then locked up and drove his old Ford pickup from New Madelyn to Old. He parked in the Madland parking lot and walked through the park’s back entrance to avoid his well-meaning friends and their words of condolence and support. He just couldn’t take it today.
The park wasn’t crowded, wouldn’t be until the weekend, and he looked forward to the hustle and bustle that would come with the tourists. It would help keep his mind off Madge.
“Henry!”
He looked up to see Father Corey walking down the path from his little church. The young man wasn’t in his priest’s collar today. Instead he wore an old paint-spattered shirt, cap, and jeans. Reluctantly Henry halted. No more sympathy, please! “Hot out today, isn’t it?” he grunted.
“Like summer,” the priest agreed. “Justin said you weren’t feeling well, Henry. How are you?”
“Just a little stomach flu, Father Mike. I’m fine now. Doing a little painting?” he asked before the priest could say something consolatory.
Michael Corey’s look of concern turned into a frown. “You must not have heard. Somebody broke into the church and vandalized it. They painted satanic symbols and nearly ruined the crucifix. Gus Gilliam thinks he can get the blood off and restore it, thank the Lord.” He crossed himself.
“One of those devil cults do it?”
Corey shook his head. “I don’t know. Chief Baskerville is investigating, but I don’t expect much to come of it. He’s too busy with—with the other problems. Henry, I’m sorry about Madge. If you’d like to talk—”
“Thanks, Father,” Marquay said quickly as tears sprang to his eyes. “She’ll be back. I’ve gotta go.” He started trudging toward the mine.
“I’ll pray for her,” Corey called after him.
Henry raised his hand in acknowledgment, not trusting his voice, and continued walking.
“What the—”
The Haunted Mine Ride was closed. He stepped up to the ticket booth to read the note in the window. “Closed for repairs, will reopen tomorrow.”
“What the hell?” If something was wrong with the ride, Justin should have told him about it. Irritated, he let himself into the cool interior, sniffing the air as the door slapped shut behind him.
“Holy shit!” No wonder Justin had closed the place down; it smelled like something had curled up and died inside the mine. “Justin? You in here? Justin? Answer me, son!”
46
Justin Martin
“SHIT!” JUSTIN MARTIN, WHISPERED THE WORD, THEN YELLED, “Be right up, Mr. Marquay!”
He never expected the old man to show up, just as he hadn’t expected the goddamned afternoon heat that had made the bodies start stinking. He had to think fast.
“Where are you?” Marquay’s voice echoed down into the old pit where Justin was working.
“Mr. Marquay?” he called, shoveling dirt.
“Justin?”
“Wait there! I’ll be up in just a minute.”
“Hurry!”
“I will!”
Feverishly he shoveled dirt over the bodies in the center of the pit. When he had come at quarter to three, he’d immediately detected the faint but unmistakable odor of putrefaction wafting up from below. He thought the little room at the bottom of the shaft was so deep and the air so cool that it wouldn’t happen. After all, Joe Huxley, his first victim, hadn’t made much of a stink; certainly not enough to drift upstairs or into the vents. But Huxley had been a scrawny old sun mummy in the first place, without much meat on his bones. His body had swollen, then slowly shriveled until he looked like a real mummy. Justin had been a fool not to take better precautions.
He’d hurriedly put the closed-for-repairs sign out front, then grabbed one of the antique pickaxes and a shovel from the display in one of the ride’s exhibits and climbed down into the pit. Lighting his lantern, he saw that Kyla Powers’s heavyset and very bloated body had exploded. Fluids and pus oozed from a foot-sized hole in the abdomen. Madge Marquay must have stepped in it. His stomach had turned when he’d seen the maggots swarming in the viscera: He also hadn’t expected any flies to come down so far into the earth. They smelled meat.
Stolidly he’d gone to work, using the pickax to break up the rocky dirt floor of the chamber. He worked for nearly an hour until, sweating, muscles heavy and sore, he’d managed to make a wide, shallow pit in the middle of the floor. Just before Old Man Marquay showed up, he’d pushed the bodies into it and begun covering them.
“Justin! I’m coming down!”
“No!” he yelled at the top of his lungs. “I’m on my way up!” He threw the last shovelful of earth over Kyla Powers’s bubbling abdomen. The bodies weren’t entirely covered: He was going to have to do more, maybe bring down some borax or, if he could get it, lime. Taking the shovel and lantern, he quickly climbed the rope ladder out of the excavation, then took the two iron ladders that led to the upper levels, leaving the lift safely below.
“Justin?” Marquay’s voice was close now.
Holding up the lantern, Justin stepped onto the tracks that the ride’s “mining” cars ran on. “Coming.” He started walking toward the exit.
In a moment the ride’s hidden lights came on and Marquay appeared in a wide wood-shored doorway. “Hi, Mr. Marquay.”
“What the hell were you doing down there?” the man asked, his arms crossed. “What are you doing with that shovel?”
Justin joined him, arranging his features into a look of solemnity. Briefly he considered hitting Marquay over the head with the shovel, but shelved the notion quickly: Others might have seen him come in. Besides, Justin needed the paycheck the old man supplied every other week. “Remember the rattraps you had me set last month?” he asked as they walked toward the ride’s main door.
“No. I don’t remember anything about rattraps.”
“Sure, you had me go all the way into Barstow for those great big ones.”
“Oh, yeah, yeah,” he muttered.
Justin hid his smile. There had never been any rattraps, but he knew Marquay had too much on his mind already and wouldn’t admit he forgot.
Grimly Justin said, “When I got here I noticed the smell, so I went around checking the traps.”
“What’d you do, catch a hundred-pounder?”
If you only knew. “No, sir, a possum, right under one of the ventilating shafts. That’s why I put up the closed sign.”
“Where is it?”
“I buried it. I didn’t know what else to do,” he added innocently. “I didn’t want to carry it up the ladder
, and even if I had, I didn’t think putting it in the Dumpster would be a good idea.”
“Smart boy.”
They stood by the mining cars in the passenger loading area. “You’d better go home and take a shower and change. It still reeks in here, so we’ll stay closed, try to get the place aired out for tomorrow.”
“Mr. Marquay?”
“What?”
“I have an idea.”
“What is it?”
“Maybe I could go down to the store and get some lime to spread on the ground. I couldn’t dig very deep,” he added, shamefaced.
“Should’ve used a pickax.” Marquay dug in his wallet and handed Justin some bills. “Get a lot and spread it around. And get rid of those rattraps. They’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Yes, sir.” Justin opened the door, squinting in the bright afternoon sunlight.
“Justin?”
“Yes, Mr. Marquay?”
“I’m going to go on home. That smell’s got my stomach feeling funny again. You’ll come right back and do the work?”
“You can count on me!”
“I know I can, Justin, and I appreciate it. I’m leaving the fans on. Turn them off when you’re finished tonight.”
“I sure will. See you tomorrow, Mr. Marquay!”
47
Hannibal Caine
“HE WOULDN’T SAY ANYTHING EXCEPT THAT HE HAS SPOKEN TO God.” Hannibal Caine rubbed his broad forehead. He was developing a whopper of a headache as he sat here in his dining room in his apartment adjacent to the Fellowship House.
“If the Prophet says he’s spoken to God, then he has,” Eldo Blandings said with finality. “Do you doubt that?”
“No, of course not,” Caine said quickly. Eldo might be willing to commit outrageous acts in the name of the Prophet, but he wouldn’t blaspheme him. “I just wish he would tell us what he intends to say tonight.”
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