Infertile Grounds

by DB Carpenter

  He nodded, not really listening – annoyed at how quickly Pell was ready to throw in the towel. This was what they had to go on, and he, for one, didn't want to see Sarah Burns succeed. Nobody should mess with nature like this. Thinking you're God is one thing. Playing God is quite another.

  2:54 am Unorganized Township T8 R4, Aroostook County, Maine

  "What the hell?" Seth exclaimed.

  Bert rolled to his right, jumped to his feet, and ran for the door. The rifle roared. In the muzzle-flash Seth saw him run outside. Jerry cranked the lever and banged off another useless round.

  "Stop shooting," Seth screamed as he ran after him. "Let's get him."

  The bright lights of the lab had destroyed his night vision, and he couldn't see a thing. The compound was black.

  "I'll get some flashlights and guns," Curtis said as he ran toward the main house.

  "We're going to split up," Seth exclaimed. "Wendel, you go toward the airstrip. Jerry, go down behind the lodge. Curtis and I'll go up the road. Hurry up, Curtis!"

  After a long minute, Curtis stumbled out of the lodge with his arms full. He handed out pistols and flashlights. The beams of light streaked through the thin ground fog searching for Bert.

  "If you find him, shoot him. Don't think about anything; just pull the trigger," Seth said. "I want him dead and I want him now. Let's go."

  Seth was making his way up the road when he heard the hollow boom of a shotgun – a big one. Jerry had the rifle, the rest were carrying pistols – who had a shotgun? Before that thought could fully go through Seth's mind, he heard the screams. They came from the direction Wendel had taken.

  Seth sprinted back toward the trail that led up to the field. "Come on, Curtis!" He screamed over his shoulder as he ran.

  As they raced back to the trail entrance, another shot rang out. The screams were silenced.

  Seth slowed to a jog and then stopped. Who could that be? He had taken Bert's shotgun. "There's somebody else out there."

  "Huh?" Curtis said.

  "None of us has a shotgun. Somebody else is out there. Let's go back to the lodge."

  Jerry was waiting for them.

  "What happened?" He asked.

  "I don't know. Whoever it was must have got Wendel."

  "What do you want to do, Seth?" Jerry asked. "We can't just stand here."

  As they swung their flashlights around the perimeter of the compound Curtis yelled, "The lab - someone just went into the lab. Come on."

  Jerry and Seth spun around and pointed their lights in that direction.

  "Are you sure?" Seth asked.

  "Yeah, I just caught a glimpse of them with my flashlight beam. Someone ran in there," Curtis replied.

  "Spread out," Seth said. They started to move toward the dark barn. The peak of the roof was silhouetted against the sky, which glowed a deep purple with the approaching dawn.

  They crept slowly toward the building. Seth was going to shoot first and ask questions later. He was in a zone – focused, calm, prepared. He took steady breaths, reining in the body's natural desire to overreact. Martial arts had taught him that the difference between success and failure was often nothing more than the ability to control oneself. The flashlight beam danced ahead of him as they approached the lab, dipping into the seemingly impenetrable darkness inside the building.

  He heard a noise behind him and spun around. Bert stood thirty feet away in the shadows, holding the radio detonator in his right hand. Curtis and Jerry's lights landed on Bert a second after Seth's – just in time to see Bert's mouth open to speak but the words never got past his lips as they pumped at least a dozen well-aimed rounds into his bullet-proof-jacketless torso. The detonator dropped from his hand a second before he fell face-first into the dewy grass. Seth cringed, listening for the sound of the incendiaries going off. Nothing.

  "One down," Seth said as they turned back to the lab. They were now just a few feet from the door.

  He tapped Jerry on the shoulder and pointed to the other side of the doorway. Jerry ran across to the other side. The three men stood with their backs against the wall.

  "We know you're in there," Seth said. "Come out. We won't hurt you."

  Silence. He looked over at Jerry who shrugged.

  "This is your last chance," Seth said.

  "You'll never get away with it," a vaguely familiar voice said from the darkness inside.

  Seth cocked his head. He recognized the voice. It was distinctive, French, old – Alby Fournier!

  "Alby, that you?" Seth said. "You kill the power? What're you doing?"

  "I saw what you did to Annie and Stu," Alby said. "I watched them and the Wild Bear burn."

  He motioned to Jerry and mouthed, "On my signal." The rustling of paper and a piece of furniture sliding across the floor came out of the darkness.

  "I didn't want to do that, Alby. Stu screwed up. You know how it is. Sometimes we got to do what we got to do."

  "Uh-huh. And I'm doing what I got to do to. I saw something in that fire. Like nothing I never seen before. It came out of the flames, walked right out like a man. It talked to me. Told me what you're doing. Said it was against the rules."

  "Rules? Whose rules?"

  "God's," he replied. More sounds of furniture skittering across the floor floated through the door. "I know it all. Sarah Burns is Molech, God of the Ammonites, back to sacrifice the children just like the Old Book said and you're her imps."

  Seth shook his head. "You willing to die for a phantom, a figment of your imagination, Alby."

  "Weren't no phantom. I seen God and He asked me to do something for Him. Just like when Solomon turned away from the Lord and followed the evil gods like Molech, building altars so his wives could sacrifice children to their horrible God. The Lord raised up adversaries to Solomon then and now he's asked me to be the same. The nuns at St. Lukes told me I was special and here I am doing His business. At His request, just like they said. I'm going to stop you."

  Seth glanced at his men, rolled his eyes and counted softly, "One, two, three."

  They burst into the room waving their flashlights around wildly. Curtis started shooting. The other two joined in, spraying the room with gunfire.

  "Hold on!" Seth screamed. "Hold on."

  They stopped shooting and looked around the smoky room – nobody.

  "What did you shoot at?" Seth asked Curtis.

  "I thought I saw him over there," Curtis said as he pointed to the far corner of the room.

  Seth motioned for Curtis to go check it out as he glanced at Jerry. Curtis crept across the room, looking around the tables and boxes. Not finding anything.

  "I don't understand," he said. "I could have sworn I saw –"

  His voice was cut off by the roar of a shotgun as Alby, who had been hiding under the mess of papers and boxes left on the floor, jumped up and unloaded both barrels at point-blank range. Curtis' head erupted in a horrific explosion of flesh and blood.

  Alby dove back to the floor.

  The sight of their friend's headless body hesitating before crumpling to the floor made both of them pause.

  "Don't move any closer," Alby called. "I got plenty of rounds here and these next ones are yours."

  Seth and Jerry glanced at each other. "Calm down now, Alby," Seth said. "We need to talk about this. You've got the wrong idea. We can explain everything." He nodded to Jerry and they both edged slowly toward Alby's location.

  "I said don't move," shouted Alby standing up and fumbling with a shell that refused to seat properly in the break-action gun. Too late. Seth and Jerry emptied their clips into him. Alby's body twitched and jerked as each bullet entered it.

  Seth fired his last round as Alby fell forward onto one of the lab tables and rolled face up, dropping his shotgun to the floor. Blood bubbled out of his mouth. Seth reached over and pulled out a tattered Bible that was protruding from Alby's shirt pocket. A bullet hole perforated the worn leather cover. The backside was bloody. The holy book was bleeding
– mortally wounded.

  He looked down at Alby shaking his head. "Why did you have to get involved old-timer? Where's your God now, eh? He wasn't around to protect you this time was he?"

  Seth slammed his fist onto the table "Fuck!" He yelled. "Why is everything going wrong. Come on, let's get out of here before someone else turns up."

  Jerry was just about to say something when a popping sound disturbed them.

  "What the.." Seth said. The sound had come from the fifty-five-gallon drum filled with explosives. The detonators had just gone off. In less than ten seconds the lab would become a raging inferno.

  "Oh my god!" Jerry exclaimed.

  "Run!" Seth screamed. As he turned for the door, his right foot stepped into the pool of blood forming around Curtis' body and shot out from under him. Jerry leapt over a small workbench and sprinted toward the door.

  The wind left Seth's lungs as he landed on his back on the hardwood floor. He looked over at the barrel that started to erupt with flames. He only had seconds to live if he didn't get out of here.

  Struggling to his knees, he grabbed onto the table and managed to get to his feet but his lungs didn't understand their function. The barrel started to roar. Flames no longer simply shot out of the top of the barrel; they were thrust out with a force that increased tenfold every second. If the barrel had been on its side, it would have become a rocket.

  He tried to step away from the table, but had to grab it again. His legs still didn't have any strength. The flames raced across the ceiling and the temperature in the room skyrocketed.

  He staggered toward the door. The rumbling sharp snaps of the inferno filled the air. He looked to his right and saw the flames racing down the far wall and across the floor toward him. The giant flame vortex converged on him from all angles pushing a hot wind and burning debris – wanting to sweep him up. Alby's prophetic words came back to him "You're her imps." Jesus Christ!

  This must be what an NFL quarterback felt like when the blitz was on. Ten more feet to go. He leaned forward and with every bit of strength he could muster, sprinted for the door. The flames caught up to him just as he passed through the entrance and out into the cool air. The hair on the back of his head burst into flames as did his shirt. He kept running far enough away from the fire to be safe; then fell to the ground and started rolling wildly, trying to put out the flames on his head and clothes.

  Jerry pounded at the flames with his hands and they managed to extinguish them. Seth lay there staring at the sky, breathing deeply. He rolled over and looked at the lab. It was fully engulfed. They watched in silence as the lab and the lodge burned to the ground.

  It only took about forty minutes for the fires to burn themselves out. They were far too intense to last for very long and consumed both structures leaving nothing but charred foundations and mounds of ash.

  The sun was now up, and Jerry inspected Seth's burns.

  "They're not that bad," he said after a few minutes of examination. "The worst is on the back of your head. Your clothes took the brunt of the other damage."

  "How did that happen?" Seth asked. He was in mild shock.

  Jerry walked over to Bert's lifeless body and saw the detonator in his hand. He bent down and held it up so that Seth could see.

  "I guess he wasn't quite dead."

  "Son of a bitch," Seth said.

  The crunch of stones beneath rubber drifted down the road. Jerry stuffed his pistol in the back of his pants and stood up.

  As the car came into view, Seth let out a long exhalation. Now wasn't a good time for unexpected visitors. It was only Mark.

  Mark pulled up and got out. "What the hell happened here?"

  "It's a long story," Seth replied as he struggled to get to his feet. "What took you so long?"

  "Car problems. Down route eleven."

  "Well, I'm glad that you're here," Jerry said as he helped Seth up.

  "We've got to get out of here," Seth said as he supported himself against Mark's car.

  "I'll drive the truck," Mark said.

  "We'll take the plane," Seth replied. "The route map is in the glove compartment, Mark. Just follow that and you should be okay."

  "When do you want me to be there?"

  "Four days max, preferably three."

  "Three days, that's impossible!" Mark exclaimed.

  "I know it's a long haul, but you've got to do it. There's some pills in the dash. Take one every four hours."

  "I don't know –"

  "Look, we're down two more guys now. If they were alive this wouldn't be an issue but they're not. You need to step it up."

  "Fine," Mark replied.

  Jerry and Seth got into the car and drove toward the plane.

  "You ought to see a doctor."

  Seth nodded. He had no time to see a doctor. Right now, all he could think about was the call to Sarah that he was going to have to make. He wasn't looking forward to it, not in the least bit.

  7:44 am FBI field Office, Bangor, Maine

  "This is agent Derek Carlisle," Pell said.

  Derek shook Chris' hand. His grip was weak, almost feminine. His long bony fingers wrapped Chris' hand like tentacles. When he let go, Chris involuntarily wiped his hands on his pants.

  "Chris Foster," he replied.

  The rolled up report was on the table and Derek picked it up, smoothed it out on the edge of the table and then sat down in a chair to read it.

  Margaret, the receptionist, walked in. "The carpenters are here. What do you want me to tell them to do?"

  "Tell them to fix the door," Pell replied.

  Margaret pursed her lips and huffed before turning and stomping out of the room.

  Pell called after her, "Hey, Margaret. Can you make us another pot of coffee, please?"

  The receding beat of her heavy footsteps paused, and then she continued without responding.

  "She loves me," Pell said with a smirk.

  "Obviously," Chris replied. "So what are we going to do now?"

  Pell joined them at the table. He ran both hands through his hair, pulling it back so that the wrinkles on his forehead smoothed and let out a long slow sigh. Chris knew that look all too well. It would get a lot worse before it got any better.

  "I don't know?" Pell finally said. "Do you see anything there, Derek?"

  Derek set the piece of paper on the table and shook his head. He rolled out his long thin index finger and tapped the picture of the young Sarah Burns. "You need to find her. She's the key."

  Pell nodded. "I'm thinking that we should head up to the County, do a little leg work and see if we can get lucky."

  "We don't have much time," Chris said. "David Rose told me that it was going to happen soon – real soon. He could have meant it was only days away."

  Margaret walked in with a pot of coffee and some styrofoam cups. "There's a call for you on line one, Pell," she said as she set the coffee on the table.

  "Thanks."

  Chris poured himself a cup while Pell picked up the phone.

  "Agent Pelletier," he said, and was silent as he listened. "Really. We'll be there in a couple of hours."

  He replaced the receiver. "That was the state police. There was a fire up in Aroostook County last night. They think a state cop died."

  Chris stirred a creamer packet into the coffee and said, "So."

  "So, his name was Bert Nadeau."

  He stopped stirring. "That's a mighty big coincidence."

  Pell nodded. "Too big. We're going up there right now. Derek, I want you to start an all-out search for Sarah Burns. Get every asset we have working on it. Somewhere there's got to be more information on her. Nobody disappears for almost twenty years, not in this day and age."

  "But our guys at Langley couldn't find anything on her," Derek said.

  "That doesn't mean she doesn't exist, she's just off the grid. We need feet on the street with pictures canvasing Aroostook County. Somebody, somewhere has seen her. We just need to find them. We need some evidenc
e that she is alive and we need it yesterday."

  Derek nodded and left the room.

  "Maybe this'll be the break we've been looking for," Chris said as he took a gulp of the hot coffee.

  "It could certainly be. Bring that coffee with you. I want to get going now."

  "Sure thing," he said as he stood up and followed Pell out of the room.

  As they walked past the carpenters, who had removed the door and were patching the wall, Chris remembered the report on the desk and quickly turned back to retrieve it before heading down to the car.

  Pell placed a spinning blue light on the dash. They sped down the street and once they were on the highway, Pell wound the car up to one-hundred-twenty miles an hour. The suburbs of Bangor quickly turned into the endless woods for which northern Maine was famous for. At this rate, they'd be there in no time.

  Chris returned to the report. Something was here, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He was looking out the windshield at the jagged stone of Mt. Katahdin when it came to him.

  Turning to Pell, he noticed beads of sweat lined his forehead, and his eyes looked glazed – foggy.

  "Are you okay, Pell?" Chris asked.

  He didn't respond. Chris reached over and tapped his shoulder.

  "What?" He said.

  "I said, are you okay? You don't look so good."

  "I'm fine," he replied as he wiped the sweat from his brow.

  "Let's pull over. There's a scenic lookout right up here. Pull in."

  "We can't. We've got to make time, Chris."

  "If we get into an accident because you refused to take a breather, it's certainly not going to do either of us any good."

  He turned and glared. "Fine."

  They pulled into a scenic lookout on a steep, rocky hillside overlooking a tree-lined, swampy lake that often had moose in it. The dark stone mountain was reflected in the still waters. They got out and walked over to a picnic table. Pell looked terrible. Chris worked the handle of a hand pump mounted next to the table, and soon cool spring water spurted out onto the ground.

  "Splash some of this on your face."