Mojave Green

by The Brothers Washburn

  Just then, she heard the roar of the Camaro’s engine. Cal and Lenny were still mobile. She didn’t know what good Cal could do against that snake, but then, he liked to surprise her.

  The snake had completely coiled itself and was ready to strike. Its tail stretched behind and to the right, shaking violently in warning of what it was about to do.

  Cal’s Camaro came into view behind the snake. He was heading straight for it. The snake sensed something coming and tried to rear away from the fast-moving, kamikaze car. At the last moment, the car swerved away from the snake, but not before banging into its rattles with the right front bumper and crunching some of the rattles under the right front tire.

  The Camaro skidded sideways and even went up on two tires, as if it was going to roll. But it didn’t. Cal knew how to handle his Camaro. The car plopped back down onto all four wheels and slid to a stop in billowing waves of dust.

  The snake tilted its head to focus on the Camaro. At the same time, the Camaro’s engine roared back to life, fishtailing away, throwing sand and rocks up into the snake’s face. The snake turned from the broken Mustang to pursue the fleeing Camaro.

  A surge of relief flooded Camm’s body. Cal had grown up here and had spent many hours driving off road, even before he had his license. She was sure he would be able to outrace the snake while leading it far away from the disabled Mustang.

  As she watched the chase, the snake and car seemed to glimmer, and then fade. She had the same sensation of dizziness and nausea she had felt just before the spiders appeared. Suddenly, the roar of the Camaro’s engine faded to nothing. The snake and the Camaro had all disappeared into the dry desert air.

  Desperation and panic welled up inside Camm. She stretched out her hand as if reaching after Cal. “Noooo!” she wailed.

  She turned to stare at Agent Allen. She wanted to scream. Instead, she frantically clambered over the top of the Agent and climbed out the driver’s side window, which had been smashed out in the rollover. Agent Allen climbed out behind her.

  Camm scanned the desert, searching for any sign of the Camaro. She took off running in the direction Cal had been headed, following the large path left by the snake. It looked as if a huge barrel had been dragged through the sand, uprooting bushes and turning over large rocks along the way. The trail suddenly faded into nothing as if the snake had been swallowed up into the empty desert sky.

  “Camm! Camm!” Agent Allen called, coming after her. “Come back! They’re gone, and where they’ve gone, we can’t follow. We can’t help them now. We’ve got to help ourselves.”

  Camm felt her throat closing up and her chest tightening. Her eyes burned as she fought back the tears. She couldn’t lose Cal like this, not here, not now.

  “Gone? Gone where? Where did they go? That snake thing is still after them!”

  Agent Allen sighed, and then winced. Camm noticed she was holding her left wrist, and there was blood coming from one ear. She had been injured in the accident.

  “I don’t know where they went. What did Rick say? They ‘crossed over.’ I don’t know where or how, but I promise we’re going to find out. It’s time to get some real answers.”

  Agent Allen turned back to the car.

  Camm stared at the rocks and sand at her feet, overwhelmed with desperation. She needed to do something, anything. Cal had only come along on this trip to be with her. Somehow she had to get to Cal and bring him back. She fought the emotions flooding her, but it was no use. Her eyes filled with tears, which ran freely down her cheeks.

  Peering into the back window of the car, Agent Allen called out, “Come on, Camm. We have to get this friend of yours to a hospital, stat!”

  Wiping her cheeks, Camm hiked back to look inside the car. Martha was still curled up on top of her head in a position that only a cat could sustain. She was unconscious.

  It took them some time to carefully extricate Martha from the car, trying not to do her further damage. She was breathing, but she did not regain consciousness. Once they had her out, Agent Allen pulled her cell phone from her pocket. It had been hopelessly damaged in the wreck. Camm tried to find her phone and couldn’t. It must have fallen out of her pocket. After a careful search around the car, her phone was finally given up for lost.

  Agent Allen sighed. “Camm, I’m hurt, too. I will stay here and see to Martha, best that I can. You have to run up to the main road and flag down some help.”

  Heading out across the desert for Trona Road, Camm started at a run, then a fast limp, and finally a hurried shuffle. The main road was farther than it looked. She had been injured in the accident, too, but was only now starting to feel it. As she hobbled along, tears streamed unhindered down her face and sobs burst out from deep inside her chest.

  Everything was wrong. It had all gone so wrong. Martha was seriously injured, and still unconscious. Agent Allen was hurt. Mr. Roberts was dead. And Cal and Lenny had disappeared, crossed over into who-knew-what.

  Cal! Would she ever see Cal again?

  Camm had never known this kind of pain. It was more than she could bear. The tears flowed freely.

  XI

  Cal swerved through the sagebrush. Working the brake and gas pedals, he twisted the steering wheel back and forth, spinning the Camaro around the bigger bushes and slamming through the smaller ones. He knew exactly where he was going. At least, he thought he did.

  Squinting, he searched for the wide dirt road that ran past the south end of the small Trona airport and out around the east side of Searles Lake. He had driven that road many times and knew he could push his Camaro to maximum speed once he got on the hard, flat surface of the dry lake bed.

  He did not find the dirt road. Nor did he pass the airport. He thought it odd that he had only been gone one year from town, but somehow had forgotten how to find that dirt road.

  Lenny yelled in his ear, “Dude, here it comes again! Man, it’s movin’.” Lenny was keeping track of the snake through the rear window.

  Even though Lenny gave him constant updates, Cal kept an eye on the huge reptile through his rear view and side mirrors. That snake was huge, but also quick! Cal watched it grow larger in the mirror as it got closer and closer. He did not want to get too far ahead, not yet anyway. The Mustang had rolled with Camm, Martha, and the agent inside, and he was determined to lead the snake as far from the site of the accident as he could.

  As the snake drew near, Cal saw its head rear back slightly. He recognized this as a clear sign it was going to strike. Lenny shouted, “Watch out, dude! It’s comin’ at ya!”

  Stamping on the accelerator, Cal jumped the car forward, just as the gigantic head, fangs bared, struck out at them, barely missing the back of the car.

  Lenny whooped. “Way to go, dude! You the man!”

  Lenny is enjoying this way too much, considering that snake is trying to eat us for lunch. Cal smiled. Truthfully, with the all adrenalin coursing through his own veins, Cal was enjoying it too. It felt good to be on his home turf again.

  They weaved and twisted through the desert sage, keeping just out of reach of the monster reptile. Every time it struck, barely missing them, Lenny would holler and Cal’s heart would skip a beat. By maintaining a south by southeast direction, they eventually ran into the dry lake bed, never finding any kind of dirt road—which was strange.

  As he drove out onto the lake bed, Cal glanced in his rear view mirror and saw the snake was still following, but was way back in the sagebrush. It seemed to be slowing down. Cal guessed the long, hard chase had tired it, so he slowed, letting it get close, within striking distance again. When the head pulled back to strike, Cal hit the gas to jump out of the way.

  The snake missed by a mile. It was definitely showing signs of fatigue. Cal led it onward at a leisurely pace. Finally, the snake seemed to stop, so Cal decided it was time to leave it in the dust.

  Cal pushed the pedal to the metal. He had always taken good care of his car and knew the V8 engine had power to spare. This was jus
t like driving on the Bonneville Speedway in Utah. The surface of the lake bed was hard and flat and went on for miles and miles. Leaving a large white plume behind them, they sped away at more than a hundred miles an hour with Lenny whooping at the top of his voice.

  When Lenny checked back over his shoulder, the snake had disappeared in the cloud of white dust. “Yeah, dude! Go, go, go!” he yelled. “Eat our dust you limbless, venomous reptile! The mammals win this one.”

  Lenny flipped around in his seat. Holding onto the dashboard, he leaned forward so he could watch the surface of the lake bed fly by. He started laughing, almost hysterically. Cal couldn’t help himself and laughed with him. It didn’t get better than this!

  When Cal deemed they were safe, having put several miles between them and the snake, he locked up the brakes and jammed the steering wheel to the right, causing the car to do several three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spins across the white alkaline lake bed. This was a totally unnecessary maneuver, but it was a good way to celebrate and flowed naturally from all the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

  They finally came to a stop at the apex of a large, white, swirling cloud. As the cloud blew away, Cal looked over at Lenny. Lenny stared back, all the color drained from his face. Licking his lips and looking almost solemn, he whispered, “Dude, that was so, so . . .”

  Lenny shook his head. “. . . that was so, like, on the Moon. No, man, wait. That was so like on Mars, dude. Yeah, that was totally way out there, you know, like on Mars.”

  They climbed out of the car. Cal jumped up on the rear bumper to get a better look around. There was no snake in sight. It must have given up the chase. He was so relieved to be rid of the snake, he didn’t think about looking for anything else.

  “Now that was one mean Mojave Green. Remember, Lenny, I told you to stay away from them. They all have real bad attitudes.”

  Lenny nodded. “Dude, I’m a believer.”

  “Let’s go back and check on the girls.” Cal wasn’t sure how smart that snake might be. Though he had led it away from Camm and the others, it might try to double back on them. Also, as the adrenaline slowly eased out of his body, he began to worry about what had happened when Agent Allen’s car flipped over. Someone might have been hurt. They might need his car to go to town for help.

  Walking around to Lenny’s still-open side door, Cal opened the glove compartment and pulled out a Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum revolver.

  “Whoa, dude, I didn’t know that was in there. Where did that come from?” Lenny stared wide-eyed at the gun.

  Cal shrugged his shoulders. “It’s no big deal. It was a graduation gift from my dad. I think he got tired of me always borrowing his pistol, so he got me one of my own.”

  Cal pulled out a box of shells and loaded five bullets, leaving the chamber under the hammer empty, the way he’d been taught.

  He looked up, trying to sound casual. “Never hurts to be prepared. Now, let’s go back and make sure the girls are okay.”

  Before reaching the line where the desert sagebrush rimmed the edge of the dry lake, they saw the wide track left by the snake veer off to the east, toward the Slate Range Mountains. Either it gave up at that point, realizing it couldn’t catch them, or it didn’t like being out on the chemically saturated lake bed. It did not appear to be heading back to the Mustang.

  At least that much is good news, Cal thought.

  As they followed their tire tracks back through the desert, Lenny kept busy watching for the snake, just in case. Cal focused on driving, but a sinking feeling was growing in his gut, nagging at him. The euphoria from beating the snake disappeared. This was Cal’s old stomping grounds. He knew it well, but something had changed. Something wasn’t right. Not sure what it was, he decided it was his concern for Camm. He was really worried she’d been hurt.

  Suddenly and unexpectedly, the tracks came to an end. They just stopped. It was as if the Camaro had dropped out of the sky right where the tracks started.

  They got out to look around. This time Cal climbed on top so he could see farther.

  “Dude, what’s up?” Lenny looked puzzled.

  Cal turned, looking in all directions. He saw no signs of the Mustang or the salt cedars surrounding Valley Wells. He could not see Trona Road or the airport, both of which should have been clearly visible. He could not see Trona or Pioneer Point or any of the chemical plants in the valley. There was no sign of civilization anywhere. His entire hometown and all signs of humanity had just disappeared completely from off the face of the planet.

  Watching Cal, Lenny began to look concerned. “Dude?” he asked.

  Cal hopped off the car and looked over at Lenny. He inhaled the hot, dry air deeply, and then exhaled it through pursed lips. “Lenny, my man, I don’t know how to tell you this, but we’re not in Kansas anymore. As far as I can tell, we may in fact be on Mars!”

  There was no doubt about it. It was totally grotesque—long, curved fangs, bulging eyes, a deformed nose, and a long hideous tongue pointing straight out of the mouth, like an accusing finger. But what really grabbed Camm’s attention was that it was unique.

  She had counted a total of 251 gargoyles in her third-floor room in the Searles Mansion. 250 were repeat carvings on the same five themes: two types of demons; a deformed jester; an evil angel with a flaming halo; and something with a troll or ogre face. Those same five gargoyles were carved over and over along the bed headboard, the wainscoting, and the chair rail, but there was only one hideous rat head.

  What did that mean?

  She had no one to ask.

  Camm and Martha had been kept in isolation from the rest of the world ever since they’d been transported from the totaled Mustang directly to the mansion for medical aid and a series of debriefings. Those debriefings, conducted by the white-haired men, mainly involved Camm, since Martha was allowed to sleep most of the time per doctor’s orders. Martha’s room had been made into a makeshift hospital room, and she had been seen by a doctor twice.

  Camm was in a room next to Martha’s. Camm was allowed free access, if free access meant her room, Martha’s room, and the bathroom at the end of the hallway.

  Camm had tried asking for her one phone call, but was denied. Neither girl had been allowed any outside communications, even with parents or family. Agent Allen had come by occasionally, but Camm suspected that even her visits were being restricted. After failing in her task of getting Camm, Cal, and friends out of Trona without incident, Agent Allen was not on good terms with the folks from Swift Creek.

  Men in dark suits and white shirts stood guard both inside and outside the mansion and watched Camm’s every move. They did not talk to Camm, and she did not talk to them. By the cold expressions on their faces, she felt they blamed her for Mr. Roberts’s death. She blamed herself a little. If she hadn’t come here, he wouldn’t be dead.

  Even worse, for all she knew, Cal and Lenny could be dead, too. She hadn’t heard from them or had any news about them since they had disappeared into the desert with the giant rattlesnake hot on their tails.

  Just that morning, Camm had been taken down to the second floor for another interview with the white-haired men. They had started out by making it clear they were very unhappy about the way things were going. That made Camm mad.

  “Cal and I are not responsible in any way for what happened! You need to send someone over there right now to find Cal and Lenny and bring them back.”

  The two men used high-sounding, technical terms in long, confusing explanations of why they couldn’t do that, but to Camm it sounded like all they were saying was that no one knew how to do that. No one knew how to go wherever Cal and Lenny were. No one knew how to bring them back. Everyone, they said, was unhappy with the current situation, very unhappy.

  Trudging back to her third-floor prison room, Camm did not know what Swift Creek was going to do with her, and she did not believe they knew either. The whole thing was a big mess. She was very sorry she had pulled Martha into the middle of
it.

  Since being brought to the mansion, Camm had occupied her time playing nurse to Martha and exploring their two rooms. Her nurse duties had been light. Now that Martha was conscious and more coherent, she worried constantly about getting to her internship in Los Angeles. Camm’s biggest chore was convincing Martha she still needed sleep and was in no condition to be moved, let alone to start her internship.

  As far as her exploring went, all Camm had discovered were some very old candles, some desiccated, stinky moth balls, and some old newspapers that had been used as drawer liners. Her room and Martha’s room were almost identical, except for the intricate baroque carvings that decorated each room. Martha’s room sported wild animals while Camm’s had gargoyle heads. Boredom had driven Camm to count the gargoyle heads in her room and notice the recurring pattern.

  Camm could not stop staring at the rat-head gargoyle, the one gargoyle not following the pattern. The gargoyles in the chair rail ran all around the four walls of the room. The rat-head gargoyle sat midway along the wall her room shared with Martha’s. The walls were made of cross-cut oak paneling that was both beautiful and aged, trimmed with the gargoyle heads.

  Camm knelt in front of the rat head and gently ran her fingers along the carvings. It was hideous, but intricately made. She could see where each individual strand of fur had been carved. She tested the teeth and found them pinpoint sharp.

  As she touched the carving, a strange sensation came over her. A soft, but frigid breeze brushed the back of her neck, causing the hairs there to stand on end. The sulfuric smell that she associated with the mansion wafted through the air. It was as if something was reaching out for her. She felt as if something was trying to touch her. After glancing around the room to confirm she was alone, Camm shook off the feeling and continued her examination of the rat’s head.

  She softly touched the extended tongue. To her surprise, it depressed slightly under gentle pressure, and then sprang back into place. She heard a clicking noise on the other side of the wall, and then one of the oak panels popped an inch out of place.