Mojave Green

by The Brothers Washburn

  Camm took hold of his arm and helped him up.

  He smiled at her and quietly exclaimed, “Mentirosa!”

  Camm didn’t know what that meant, but it sounded like something from her high school Spanish class. She eased him into the front seat of the car. No one seemed to be home at the Jimenez house, so they drove away to see Sarah without further incident.

  Camm never saw the two nearly naked men with a small dog, watching her drive away.

  XXVII

  Lenny shoveled another load of sand onto the stairs leading up to the front door of the mansion. It was a hot, hot, dry day—still hot, even though it was evening. It was too hot for manual labor. Lenny did not like manual labor on any day, not even on the best of days.

  He dropped the compact folding shovel, which they had found in one of the military style backpacks, and squinted against the light from the setting sun. “Dude, I’m not sure this is wise. I mean, we’re lucky just to be alive. You know what I mean?”

  Lucky was not a word Lenny was comfortable using. Not for this situation. The natural laws of the universe were at play, of that Lenny had no doubt. But exactly how they were playing out, Lenny did not know. That he and Cal should be dead, he was certain. He felt the universe had somehow been cheated. He was having trouble deciding how to deal with it.

  Cal put down the hubcap he had been using as a shovel and returned Lenny’s squint. “So, we’re alive. We survived the flashflood. Quit beating a dead horse. By one power or another, you choose which one, the ravine suddenly opened up onto the flat desert floor so the water could quickly spread out and lose its force. Obviously, we’re just fated to die some other way besides drowning in a flashflood. Big deal! What’s that got to do with my car?”

  Cal and Lenny had been shoveling sand for much of the day onto the stairs leading up to the oversized front doors of the mansion. They were building a ramp to drive Cal’s Camaro up into the mansion’s main hall. At midnight, an attempt would be made to bring them home. Cal was determined not to leave his car behind. He wanted it in the mansion so it could make the transition back with them. Lenny was not so sentimental.

  “Look. We know some things, but I’m not sure how this whole transition thing works. It’s like, dude, moving two people back and forth from one dimension to another is one thing. Moving two tons of lifeless steel, well, dude, that’s something else. I don’t know if we should try it. Let’s just try to get back ourselves. I mean, really, dude!”

  Cal hung his head and took a deep breath. Lenny knew he was working on a response.

  Cal looked up. “From what you told me, the two different mansions actually change places. That makes sense, from what Camm and I saw last year when the grandfather clock was working. This beat-up one goes over to the other side at midnight, and the clean one over there comes here until they change back sometime before morning.”

  Lenny scratched his head. “I guess. I mean, I think. I don’t know, dude, that’s my best estimate of what happens.”

  “So, the entire mass of this huge, stone mansion goes through the transition. My Camaro weighs only a little fraction of what the mansion does. Right? It doesn’t seem like such a big stretch to bring this little bit of extra weight along. Right?”

  “Yeah, but dude, we just don’t know. It’s all guesswork and stuff. We just don’t know.”

  Cal sighed and rubbed his sore hands together. “I just don’t want to leave my car behind. Not here, not in this weird world of giant snakes and hawks and stuff. This is my first car. I know it’s not alive and doesn’t have feelings and crap, but it’s my first car. I don’t feel right leaving it behind. At the very least, I’m going to park it in the main hall and shut the front doors. There’s plenty of room. The mansion won’t mind. My car is smaller than some of the furniture.”

  Now it was Lenny’s turn to sigh. “I know. Or maybe I don’t know ’cause I’ve never owned my own car. But dude, it’s like, we should be dead, you know, drowned and dead. Somehow the weird rules between this world and our world have kept us alive. I wonder if now we’re pushing things a little, like stepping on the rules too much, you know, like bad dimensional karma, you know, like that.”

  Lenny smiled to himself. He knew no one could mix eastern religion with theoretical physics like he could.

  The truth was, and Lenny knew it, they should be dead. The flashflood had carried them several hundred yards before spreading out across the sandy desert floor.

  Lenny was a surfer, a strong swimmer. Cal was no slouch himself. On the football team, Cal lifted weights and kept in shape. But swimming in a pool or even surfing in the ocean did not compare to riding a flashflood down a narrow canyon amid heavy limbs and debris.

  Both Cal and Lenny had been held under water for much of the ride, being battered and banged by all the debris in the flood waters. But the ride had been mercifully short. Both had been washed up on a sandbar as the flood waters quickly spread out. Waterlogged and bruised, gasping for breath while puking up nasty, dirty water, they were nevertheless alive. Both believed that something besides dumb luck had kept them alive.

  Cal’s theory was more simple. After all those years of going to Sunday School with Camm, he believed there was a higher intelligence at work in the universe, and his desperate prayers for help had been answered.

  But this was too simple for Lenny. He didn’t know what had happened, but he was sure inter-dimensional forces were at work. He wanted to know what laws of physics had saved them, what it was about being from one dimension and living in another that had kept them alive.

  Something had, but what? It was the not knowing that worried Lenny. He was scientific in a superstitious kind of way. Since there was so much he didn’t understand, it seemed foolish to press their so-called luck any more than they had to.

  Cal had resumed shoveling sand onto the stairs. A person’s attachment to his or her car was something Lenny had never understood, but he knew that such attachments existed. He figured he had no choice but to accept it, especially in this case. In the end, he didn’t want to disappoint Cal.

  Lenny squinted at the last rays of sunlight as they disappeared behind the Argus Mountains. He picked up the shovel again and started shoveling sand onto the stairs leading up to the mansion. Midnight could not come fast enough for him.

  XXVIII

  Agent Kline directed the thermal imaging camera at the stone door that opened onto the spiral staircase. Squinting at the readouts, he shook his head. “I am detecting no heat signature at all on the other side of this door.”

  All of the surveillance cameras down in the little stone room seemed to be working just fine, but no one on the team of observers had seen any sign of the giant alien rat all day. Everyone assumed it was hiding out somewhere along the deep spiral staircase, and, if not perched directly behind the stone door, it would be hiding somewhere near the top of the stairs where it could reach the stone door within seconds after it was opened.

  Agent Kline looked over at Mr. S. “Do you hear anything?

  Mr. S wore a distant look. His hand pressed the listening device against the closed edge of the stone door as he listened through his earphones. “I cannot detect any sounds at all on the other side of the door. The rat should at least be breathing, if not moving otherwise. In any case, we should have been able to detect its heat.”

  “Good.” Mr. C had been hunched by the door with the two men. “Then the rat must be farther down the stairway.” Straightening, he said, “Okay, everyone, it’s time to open the door and get this done. From here on out, we move fast. Agent Allen, you’re in charge.”

  Mr. C had been heading up the venture to this point, but only three agents were going down the stairs to tranquilize the rat. Misters S and C had reluctantly admitted they were too old and too slow to be a part of any assault team. Agent Allen would head up the team and also be the point person. Everyone was beginning to trust her instincts. Her team would consist of herself, and Agents Kline and J.R. While there we
re other agents on site, the narrow stairway was too small to accommodate a bigger team, so the others were being used at critical sentry points both inside and outside of the mansion.

  J.R. had been brought up to speed on the snake, the rat, and the mansion, and was still blown away by what had really happened to Rick. As J.R. and Agent Allen stood waiting for the results from the listening and heat sensing devices, she noticed a confused look on his face.

  “Are you okay?” Agent Allen was always wary where J.R. was concerned.

  “Tell me, uh, what did that girl, Camm Smith, look like?”

  The question confused Agent Allen. “What?”

  “Never mind.” After that, J.R. seemed to concentrate more on the task at hand.

  They had thought through this mission carefully. Agent Allen would take the lead with a pistol containing darts full of ketamine and a heavy sedative. She also had her Glock loaded and ready. J.R. was to be right behind her with darts full of LSD. He had a twelve gage, sawed-off shotgun attached to his thigh. Agent Kline brought up the rear because he could see over the other two, and he carried the high-power weaponry.

  Agent Kline had made a quick call and received a special delivery just for the occasion. He was carrying a Smith and Wesson 500 Magnum revolver. Its five chambers were loaded with .50 caliber shells. Each shell was over a half inch in diameter and almost two inches long. The loaded pistol weighed over five pounds. It was the most powerful double-action revolver in the world, perhaps the most powerful handgun of any type. It was almost three times as powerful as a regular .44 Magnum and could stop a running grizzly bear dead in its tracks. They all prayed that it could also slow down a giant green rat.

  All three agents wore ear pieces that not only allowed them to communicate, but also prevented deafness should the Smith and Wesson be fired in the confined space of the stairwell. They each wore a headband with an attached light. Specially made for the military, the lights were extraordinarily bright. The headlights were to be held in reserve and used only when the rat started extinguishing the ceiling lights.

  Agent Allen glanced round at her team. “Four hours to midnight. Let’s go put that obscene rodent to sleep.” She nodded to Mr. C, who opened the door to the stairwell. The broken barrel slats had been pulled out earlier, allowing the door to swing open.

  Mr. S turned on the lights. As agreed, the team waited thirty seconds. When the lights didn’t go out and the rat didn’t charge through the open door, the three agents began their descent.

  Cautiously, Agent Allen started down the steps, holding her dart gun in front of her with both hands. She would have felt more secure holding her Glock, but she remembered what effect it had had on the rat before—almost none.

  The two other agents followed close behind. She sensed J.R.’s dart gun just over her right shoulder. “Don’t you shoot me with that LSD dart,” she said. In her mind, she added, you putz.

  “Don’t worry,” his voice came through her ear piece, “I know what I’m doing.” He sounded offended she would even suggest he might accidently shoot her. That was okay. As far as Agent Allen was concerned, he could be offended as long as he was careful.

  Slowly, they made their way down. The ceiling lights above their heads stayed on. Agent Allen sniffed the air. That horrible smell isn’t here. When the rat had chased them up these same steps, that awful, stinking, sulfur-like smell had almost suffocated her.

  She knew the old men wanted to keep that ugly, mangy thing alive, but if it so happened that she filled it with enough tranquilizer to slow it down, and then shot it until it was dead with her Glock, well, too bad. She would not be sorry.

  It still made her angry that Swift Creek had brought it back to life with the anti-venom serum they had come up with from somewhere. She thought of what a frightening experience it must have been for Camm and Cal to face the rat when they tried to kill it. They had risked their lives and had almost succeeded. A huge sacrifice for nothing. These Swift Creek guys had their priorities all wrong. This rat deserved to die.

  Slowly, they inched their way down the steep spiraling stairway, never able to see more than a few feet in front of them. The rat could be around any turn, waiting, crouching, ready to spring. It would reach Agent Allen first. One crushing bite would snap her neck.

  Although it was not especially warm this far underground, Agent Allen could feel the perspiration run down her back and drip from her forehead. This was the most nerve-wracking, the most fearsome, and without a doubt, the scariest thing she had ever experienced in her life.

  Another step, and then another, and then one more step, and still the stairs continued as if there were no end. Each step down revealed only a little more around the unending curve.

  With each step down and each little extra view, Agent Allen expected to see that black nose, the matted green fur, and the evil red eyes. She felt in her bones it was waiting, right around the corner, ready to pounce. She kept thinking, Just one more step.

  Down, down they went. All the way down. When they arrived at the bottom, at the little stone room where the rat had been imprisoned, they saw nothing. The room was there. The Plexiglas leaned to one side where it had been knocked off its mooring. The chain with the empty shackle snaked across the dirt floor. But there was no rat.

  Agent Allen reported through her mouth piece to the old men waiting upstairs. “We’ve reached the bottom. There is no rat in sight. I repeat, there is no rat. It is gone.”

  Mr. C responded, “Are you sure? Did you miss it somehow?”

  Agent Allen rolled her eyes. “Sir, there is hardly enough room for us to come down these stairs. There is no possible way we could have missed it.”

  She climbed over the Plexiglas and searched the little room that had been the rat’s prison cell. Just to be sure, she pushed against all the walls and the ceiling. She could not find a secret door. There was no rat. It was not there.

  She turned to face her two colleagues, and held her hands up in defeat. “We might as well go back upstairs.”

  J.R. looked confused. “So, where is this big green rat?”

  “I don’t know.” Agent Allen glanced about, worried.

  Agent Kline scratched his head. “It was on the stairs the last we saw it. We locked it in. I don’t see where it could have gone.”

  J.R. turned to face Agent Kline, and as he did, his gun bumped against the wall, causing it to fire a dart. The dart shot down, straight into Agent Kline’s foot. The needle penetrated his shoe, and before he could pull it out, the contents emptied into his body.

  “You shot me!” Agent Kline was incredulous. “You shot me full of LSD!”

  Agent Allen fought her way past the Plexiglas to where the other two agents were standing. J.R. had a look of horror on his face as if he couldn’t believe what he had just done. Agent Kline, who at first looked shocked, now seemed to be relaxing, even smiling. Agent Allen was sure that was not a good thing.

  “You putz!” Agent Allen pushed J.R. out of the way. Carefully, she helped Agent Kline sit down on the steps.

  “I . . . I didn’t try to. It was an accident.” J.R.’s mouth hung slack.

  Mr. C’s voice came through each ear piece. “What’s going on down there?”

  Agent Allen held Agent Kline’s face in her hands, trying to get a fix on his condition. He was a very big man, but he had been shot with a lot of LSD. Carefully, she removed the Smith and Wesson from his giant hand. He gazed up at her, his eyes slowly becoming unfocused.

  “Holy . . . !” he whispered in an amazed voice as he reclined all the way back on the steps. His eyes rolled back up into his head.

  Fury flared up inside Agent Allen. She turned to face J.R. who still had an idiotic expression on his face. “You dumb, stupid putz,” she shouted at him.

  Without warning, she slugged him in the mouth. Stunned, he backed away, blood running down from multiple breaks in his lip.

  Mr. C spoke up again. “I say. What’s going on down there?”

&
nbsp; With a sigh, Agent Allen responded, “Sir, we’ve got injured agents down here. We will need help getting the wounded back up top.”

  XXIX

  By the time they arrived at Homewood Canyon, it was nearly dark. Only a sliver of sunlight hung over the western hills, and the moon had not yet risen in the east. A glow over the Slate Range suggested the moon might soon peak out from behind those eastern mountains. Camm knew the glow did not come from the moon, but was from the casinos and street lights of Las Vegas shining all the way to Trona.

  So much for what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, Camm thought.

  She parked the decrepit Dodge in front of the old, battered house where Sarah lived. J.R. had been enthralled with the car ride, but now sat silently next to Camm. For a moment, Camm surveyed the homes and yards around her. Nothing moved. Even in the dusk, everything looked beaten, weathered, bleached, and shabby. The combination of the unrelenting desert sun and the fierce sandblasting winds had sucked the life and color out of everything.

  Growing up, Camm had thought Trona the ideal place to live. The edge of town was never far if she wanted to go exploring. Finding her friends at their favorite haunts was so simple. And she had liked knowing everyone in her high school. Not just everyone in her own class, but everyone in the whole school, teachers, administration, and janitors included.

  The town was so small, if you were rude to someone, you were sure to see them the next day delivering your paper or ringing up your purchase at the grocery store. When Agent Allen had visited a year ago and been so condescending toward Trona, Camm had fiercely defended her beloved hometown. Now she could see what Agent Allen had seen.

  Attending college in Connecticut for the past year had changed her perspective. Sure, she had been outside of Searles Valley before. She had been to the beach, the mountains, and shopping in San Bernardino, even L.A. But living in the East for several months had been a real eye opener. Yards and landscapes were green and lush, all without the need of sprinklers. Snow fell in the winter, and when it rained, it poured for days. Temperatures rarely exceeded eighty-five degrees. Most of those you crossed paths with would remain strangers forever.