by Ronald Kelly
“I don’t believe so,” said Bud. “The state agricultural bureau would have contacted me about something as deadly as this. No, I agree with Jasper. I think it must have been something in the stream. The cows must have ingested some sort of chemical that literally dissolved them from the inside out.”
“Looks like it rotted away everything: muscle, tissue and bone,” said Jasper. “What could do something like that?”
“Some type of corrosive acid, maybe,” replied the vet. He squatted next to the stream and studied the yellowish color of the water for a moment. Then he stuck the tip of the sourgum branch into the creek. A wisp of bright yellow smoke drifted off the surface of the water and, when Bud withdrew the stick, the first four inches of it were gone.
“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Sheriff Biggs. “That water just gobbled it right up, didn’t it?” He took a wary step back from the stream.
Bud nodded absently and tossed the entire stick into the creek. They watched as it dissolved completely and the ashy dregs washed further downstream. “I’m going to take a sample of this with me,” said the vet.
The doctor opened his medical bag and took out a small glass jar that he used for collecting urine and sperm samples from the area livestock. He lowered the mouth of the container to the surface of the stream, but dropped it the moment the glass began to smolder and liquefy. “What the hell have we got here?” he wondered aloud as the vial melted and mingled with the jaundiced currents, becoming as free and flowing as the water itself.
The three exchanged uneasy glances. Jasper Horne reached into the side pocket of his overalls and withdrew a small, engraved tin that he kept his smokeless tobacco in. He opened it, shook the snuff out of it, and handed it to the veterinarian. “Here, try this.”
Bud Fulton stuck the edge of the circular container into the creek and, finding that the chemical had no effect on the metal, dipped a quantity of the tainted water out and closed the lid. He then took a roll of medical tape, wrapped it securely around the sides of the tobacco tin, and carefully placed it in his bag. “I’ll need another water sample,” he told Jasper. “From your well.”
Jasper’s eyes widened behind his spectacles. “Lordy Mercy! You mean to say that confounded stuff might’ve gotten into my water supply?” He paled at the thought of taking an innocent drink from the kitchen tap and ending up like one of his unfortunate heifers.
“Could be, if this chemical has seeped into an underground stream,” said Bud. “I’m going to make a special trip to Nashville today and see what the boys at the state lab can come up with. If I were you, Jasper, I wouldn’t use a drop of water from that well until I get the test results.”
“I’ll run into town later on and buy me some bottled water,” agreed Jasper. “But where could this stuff have come from?” The elderly farmer racked his brain for a moment, then looked toward the east with sudden suspicion in his eyes. “Sheriff, you don’t think—?”
Sam Biggs had already come to the same conclusion. “The county landfill. This stream runs right by it.”
“Dammit!” cussed Jasper. “I knew that it would come to something like this when they voted to put that confounded dump near my place! Always feared that this creek would get polluted and poison my animals, and now it’s done gone and happened!”
“Now, just calm down, Jasper,” said the sheriff. “If you want, we can drive over to the landfill and talk to the fellow in charge. Maybe we can find out something. But you’ve got to promise to behave yourself and not go flying off the handle.”
“I won’t give you cause to worry,” said Jasper, although anger still flared in his rheumy eyes. “Are you coming with us, Doc?”
“No, I think I’ll go on and take these water samples to Nashville,” said Bud. “I’m kind of anxious to find out what those state chemists have to say. I’m afraid there might be more at stake here than a few cows. The contamination could be more widespread than we know.”
***
“What are you saying, Mr. Horne?” asked Alan Becket, the caretaker of the Bedloe County landfill. “That I deliberately let somebody dump chemical waste in this place?”
Jasper Horne jutted his jaw defiantly. “Well, did you? I’ve heard that some folks look the other way for a few bucks. Maybe you’ve got some customers from Nashville who grease your palm for dumping God-knows-what in one of those big ditches over yonder.”
Sheriff Biggs laid a hand on the farmer’s shoulder. “Now, you can’t go making accusations before all the facts are known, Jasper. Alan has lived here in Bedloe County all his life. We’ve known him since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. That’s why we gave him the job in the first place: because he can be trusted to do the right thing.”
“But what about that stuff in my stream?” asked the old man. “If it didn’t come from here, then where the hell did it come from?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Sam Biggs. He turned to the caretaker. “Can you think of anything out of the ordinary that might’ve been dumped here, Alan? Maybe some drums with strange markings, or no markings at all?”
“No, sir,” declared Becket. “I’m careful about what I let folks dump in here. I check everything when it comes through the gate. And if someone had come around wanting to get rid of some chemicals on the sly, I’d have called you on the spot, Sheriff.”
Biggs nodded. “I figured as much, Alan, and I’m sorry I doubted you.” The lawman stared off across the dusty hundred-acre landfill. A couple of bulldozers could be seen in the distance, shoveling mounds of garbage into deep furrows. “You don’t mind if we take a look around, do you? Just to satisfy our curiosity?”
“Go ahead if you want,” said the caretaker. “I doubt if you’ll find anything, though.”
Sheriff Biggs and Jasper Horne took a leisurely stroll around the dusty expanse of the county landfill. They returned to the caretaker’s shack a half hour later, having found nothing of interest. “I told you I run things legitimately around here, Sheriff,” Alan said as he came out of the office.
“Still could be something out there,” grumbled Jasper, not so convinced. “A man can’t look underground, you know.”
“We can’t go blaming Alan for what happened to your cows,” Biggs told the farmer. “That creek runs under the state highway at one point. Somebody from out of town might have dumped that chemical off the bridge. We can ride out and take a quick look.”
“You can if you want,” said Jasper. “I’ve pert near wasted half a day already. I’ve got some chores to do around the farm and then I’ve gotta run into town for some supplies.” He cast a parting glance at the barren acreage of the landfill. Although he didn’t mention it openly, Jasper could swear that the lay of the land was different somehow, that it had changed since the last time he had brought his garbage in. The land looked wrong somehow. It seemed lower, as if the earth has sunk in places.
Alan Becket accepted the sheriff’s thanks for his cooperation, then watched as the two men climbed back into the Bedloe County patrol car and headed along the two-lane stretch of Highway 70.
After the car had vanished from sight, a worried look crossed the caretaker’s face and he stared at the raw earth of the landfill. But where there was only confusion and suspicion in the farmer’s aged eyes, an expression of dawning realization shone in the younger man’s face. He watched the bulldozers work for a moment, then went inside his office. Alan sat behind his desk and, taking his wallet out of his hip pocket, fished a business card out of it.
The information on the card was simple and cryptic. There were only two lines of print. The first read TYROPHEX-14, while the second gave a single toll-free phone number.
Alan Becket stared at the card for a moment, then picked up the phone on his desk and dialed the number, not knowing exactly what he was going to say when he reached his contact on the other end of the line.
***
It was about six o’clock that evening when Jasper Horne left the county seat of Coleman and returned to h
is farm. After catching up on his chores that afternoon, Jasper had driven his rattletrap Ford pickup to town to pick up a few groceries and several gallon jugs of distilled water. He felt nervous and cagey during the drive home. He had stopped by the veterinary clinic, but Bud’s wife—who was also his assistant—told him that the animal doctor hadn’t returned from Nashville yet and hadn’t called in any important news. He had checked with Sheriff Biggs too, but the constable assured him that he hadn’t learned anything either. He had also told Jasper that he and his deputies had been unable to find any trace of illegal dumping near the highway bridge.
However, that didn’t ease Jasper’s mind any. He could picture himself forgetting the grisly events of that day, maybe stepping sleepily into the shower tomorrow morning and melting away beneath a yellowish cascade of deadly well water. He forced the disturbing image from his mind and drove on down the highway.
He was approaching the driveway of his property, when he noticed that a South Central Bell van was parked smack-dab in the middle of the gravel turn-off. Jasper craned his neck and spotted a single repairman standing next to a telephone pole a few yards away, looking as though he had just shimmied down after working on the lines.
Jasper tooted his horn impatiently and glared through his bug-speckled windshield. The man lifted a friendly hand and nodded, walking around to the rear of the van to put his tools away. The old farmer drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and glanced in his rearview mirror to see if there were any vehicles behind him. There weren’t. The rural road was deserted in both directions.
When Jasper turned his eyes back to the road ahead, he was startled to see that the telephone repairman was standing directly in front of his truck, no more than twelve feet away. The tall, dark-haired man with the gray coveralls and the sunglasses smiled humorlessly at him and lifted something into view. At first, Jasper was certain that the object was a jackhammer. It had the appearance and bulk of one. But on second glance, he knew that it was a much stranger contraption that the man held. It had the twin handles of a jackhammer, but the lower part of the tool resembled some oversized gun more than anything else. There was a loading breech halfway down and, beneath that, a long barrel with a muzzle so large that a grown man could have stuck his fist inside it.
“What in tarnation—?” began Jasper. Then his question lapsed into shocked silence as the repairman aimed the massive barrel squarely at the truck and fired once.
Jasper ducked as the windshield imploded. The projectile smashed through the safety glass and lost its force upon entering the truck cab, bouncing off one of the padded cradles of the gun rack in the rear window. Jasper looked up just as the cylindrical object of titanium steel landed on the seat next to him. He stared at it for a moment, not knowing what to make of the repairman’s attack or the thing he had fired into the truck. Then the old man’s confusion turned into panic as the projectile popped into two halves and began to emit a billowing cloud of yellow smoke. He knew what it was the moment he smelled the cloying scent. It was the same rancid odor he had gotten a whiff of that morning at the creek.
Jasper Horne wanted to open the truck door and escape, but it was already too late. He was engulfed by the dense vapor and was suddenly swallowed in a smothering cocoon of unbearable agony. That sizzling noise sounded in his ears, but this time it came from his own body. He felt his clothing fall away like blackened cinders and his skin begin to dissolve, followed by the stringy muscle and hard bone underneath. He recalled the screams of his Jersey cows, and soon surpassed their howls of pain…at least until he no longer had a throat with which to vent his terror.
***
The following morning, Bud Fulton received an urgent call from Sheriff Biggs, wanting him to come to Jasper Horne’s place as soon as possible.
Bud didn’t expect to find what he did when he arrived. A county patrol car and a Lincoln sedan with federal plates were parked on the shoulder of the highway. Only a few yards from Jasper’s driveway was a blackened hull that looked as if it might have once been a Ford pickup truck. It contained no glass in its windows and no tires on the rims of its wheels. A knot of cold dread sat heavily in the vet’s stomach as he parked his jeep behind the police car and climbed out. Slowly, he walked over to where three men stood a safe distance from the body of the vehicle. One was Sam Biggs, while the other two were well-groomed strangers wearing tailored suits and tan raincoats.
The sheriff introduced them. “Bud, these gentlemen are Agents Richard Forsyth and Lou Deckard from the FBI.” Forsyth was a heavy-set man in his mid-forties, while Deckard was a lean black man with round eyeglasses.
Bud shook hands with the two, then turned his eyes back to the truck. “What happened here?” he asked Biggs. “Damn, this is old Jasper’s truck, isn’t it? Did it burn up on him?”
“No,” said Deckard. “The truck body hasn’t been scorched. The black you seen on the metal is oxidation. Something ravaged both the exterior and interior of this vehicle, but it wasn’t fire. No, it was nothing as simple as that.”
The veterinarian stared at the federal agent, then at the sheriff. “It was that damned chemical, wasn’t it, Sam? But how did it get in Jasper’s truck?” He peered through the glassless windows of the truck, but saw no sign of a body inside. “Where the hell is Jasper? Don’t tell me he’s—”
“I’m afraid so,” replied the sheriff, looking pale and shaken. “Take a look inside, but be careful not to touch anything. Agent Deckard is a chemist and he thinks the black residue on the truck might still be dangerous.”
Cautiously, Bud stepped forward and peeked into the cab of the truck. Like the rubber of the tires and the glass of the headlights and windows, the vinyl of the dashboard and the cushions of the truck seat had strangely dissolved, leaving only oxidized metal. Amid the black coils of the naked springs lay a pile of gummy sludge that resembled the remains of the dead cows. In the center of the refuse were a number of shiny objects, all metal: a couple of gold teeth, a pocket watch, the buttons off a pair of Liberty overalls, and the steel frames of a pair of eyeglasses, minus the lenses.
Bud stumbled backward, knowing that the bits of tarnished metal were all that was left of his friend and fishing buddy, Jasper Horne.
“We appreciate you bringing this to our attention, Mr. Fulton,” said Agent Forsyth. “I know you must have been frustrated yesterday when the state lab refused to give you the test results of the samples you brought in, but we thought it best to have Agent Deckard analyze them before we released any information to local law enforcement or civilians in the area. We had to be certain that they matched up with the other samples we have in our possession.”
The veterinarian looked at the FBI agent. “Do you mean to tell me that this has happened before?”
“Yes,” said Deckard. “Three times in the past six months. We’ve done our best to keep it under wraps and out of the news media. You see, this is a very delicate investigation we have going. And the chemical involved is a very dangerous and unpredictable substance.”
“Do you know what it is?” Bud asked him.
“It is a very sophisticated and potent type of acid. More precisely, it is a super enzyme. From the tests we’ve run on the previous samples, it is not biological in nature, but completely synthetic. It can digest almost anything: organic matter, paper, plastic, wood, and glass. The only thing that it has no destructive effect on is metal and stone. We believe that it was produced under very strict and secretive conditions. In fact, its development might well have been federally funded.”
“You mean the government might be responsible for this awful chemical?” asked Bud incredulously.
Agent Forsyth looked a little uncomfortable. “We haven’t been able to trace its origin as of yet. That’s what Agent Decker and I are here to find out. You must understand, Mr. Fulton, the United States government funds thousands of medical, agricultural, and military projects every year. It is possible that one of these projects accidentally or intentionally deve
loped this particular enzyme and that it somehow got into the wrong hands, or has been unscrupulously implemented by its manufacturer.”
“Do you have any leads in the case?” asked the sheriff.
“We have several that are promising,” said Deckard. “The previous incidents concerning this chemical took place in Nebraska, Texas, and Maryland. There seems to be only one solid connection between those incidents and the ones here in Tennessee.”
“And what is that?”
“Municipal and rural landfills. There has always been one within a few miles of the reported incidents.”
Sam Biggs and Bud Fulton exchanged knowing glances. “So old Jasper was on the right track after all,” said the vet. “Do you think Alan Becket might have something to do with this?”
The sheriff shook his head. “I don’t know. I was sure that Alan was a straight-shooter, but maybe he isn’t as kosher as we thought.”
“I suggest we pick up this Becket fellow for questioning,” said Forsyth. “He might just have the information necessary to wrap up this case.”
The four climbed into their vehicles and headed east for the county landfill. None of them noticed that a van was following them at an inconspicuous distance. A telephone company van driven by a tall man wearing dark sunglasses.
***
It was seven o’clock that night when Alan Becket finally decided to come clean and tell them what they wanted to know.
Sam Biggs brought Becket from the cell he had been confined to most of the day and led him to the sheriff’s office on the ground floor of the Bedloe County courthouse. Alan took a seat, eyeing the men in the room with the nervous air of a caged animal. Agent Forsyth was perched on the corner of a desk, looking weary and impatient, while Agent Deckard and Bud Fulton leaned against a far wall. Despite his veterinary business, Bud had decided to stick around and see how the investigation turned out. Jasper Horne had been a close friend of Bud’s and he wanted to see that justice was done, as far as the elderly farmer’s death—or murder—was concerned.