by Nancy Isaak
Now, it was my turn to giggle because—seriously—we were two 10th grade girls from Agoura High, breaking into the Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station to steal their weapons.
So random!
* * * *
As we made our way along the hallway and our nerves eventually started to calm down, Jay and I discovered that the Sheriff’s Station was actually quite interesting. While the offices were pretty generic—computers, printers, desks, and chairs—there were also a lot of other things to ‘ooh and ahh’ over, like trophies and flags and those cop-sticks that are used to hit the bad guys over the head.
In fact, Jay and I both took one as a weapon. We're calling them our ‘cop-socks’—as in…‘don’t jump out at us or we’ll use these cop-sticks to sock you’.
And we did eventually find the real weapons (well, at least we could see them). They were all stored inside of a locked cage, its bars made of steel and seemingly impenetrable. Thinking that we might be lucky twice, Jay and I searched for a key to unlock the cage.
Unfortunately, we never found one.
* * * *
“You know, this is stupid.”
We were standing at the cage of guns, just staring at them—like kids at a candy store window denied their sugar.
“Why?” asked Jay, taking a whack at the armory cage with her cop-sock.
“Because this is California.”
“Yeah…so?”
“So, it's not quite Texas but—no matter how liberal this state is—it's well-armed. I’ll bet we could find what we need just by going through the townhouses in our complex.”
“That does kind of make sense,” agreed Jay. “Which would work out well with what I want to do.”
“What's that?”
“Well…like I know we can't save them all,” Jay began, giving the bars one last whack, before she turned her full attention toward me. “But I’d really like to go through all the townhouses and let all the pets out. I mean, you always hear about cats and dogs being left in abandoned buildings and living for weeks. So, there’s gotta’ be some pets in the townhouses that are still alive and looking for a way out.”
I frowned. “I hadn't even thought about the pets.”
“At least, if they were free, they'd have a chance, right? But stuck in the townhouses, they're just going to eventually die of starvation or because they don’t have enough water to drink.”
“I’m okay with that,” I nodded. “But we won’t be able to take care of all the pets, you know. We’ll just have to let them go. And the ones that we do let outside—a lot of them probably won't last long in the wild.”
“I know,” Jay said, sadly. “But I just want to do what I can. At least give them a fighting chance.”
“Well, do you want to head back now? I don't know how many townhouses we can get to, but we might be able to finish one side of the complex before it gets dark.”
Jay didn’t look happy. “I think we need to finish this first.”
“We tried. There’s just no way we can get to the weapons without a key.”
“Not that,” she said, quietly. “It’s just that…well, I think we need to look through the jail.”
“Are you kidding?!” Going through the offices had been scary enough. I couldn't even imagine going back into the jail.
“But what if there's someone alive back there?” Jay asked, in a tiny voice.
“Exactly…like a murderer or a rapist!”
“But you said it yourself.” Jay waved her arms around, looking exasperated. “This is Agoura Hills and there are no murderers here! So, if there's anybody back in those cells, it's probably just someone who got stupid and drank a few too many beers. Or it could even be some high school kid who drove too fast.”
“And it could be a murderer!” I insisted. “No way in heck I'm going back there.”
“But it could be Jacob Riker!”
“What…huh?” Now, she had my attention.
“Jacob has a car. He drives. What if he was, like coming up Malibu Canyon after a party on Zuma Beach Saturday night? And what if he was driving too fast and he got stopped at a DUI checkpoint? And what if he had been drinking beer and the sheriffs smelled it on his breath?”
“You're being sneaky,” I hissed.
“Still—what if? Like we've got to check, Kaylee,” Jay insisted. “You know we've got to check.”
“And what then?” I asked. “Now we've got to check every house along the way home, too…just to make sure that no one's inside?”
“That's different,” Jay grimaced. “If they’re humans, in their own homes, they can get out themselves. But if they're here, behind bars—they're stuck. Which means if we walk away, we'd be letting them die. How would you feel about that, knowing you could have helped, but didn’t?”
“But we don't even know if there's anybody back there in the jail,” I said. “Like the cells are probably all empty.”
“Then what's the harm in looking?” she sniffed.
I threw up my hands in frustration. “Because somebody might actually be in there! And if that somebody really is a murderer—how would you feel about that?”
Jay placed her hands on her hips, stubbornly facing me down. “And how would you feel if there's someone in those cells, and that someone is Jacob and we walk away and just let him die?”
Dammit!
Of course, I gave in.
* * * *
I was hoping that the jail would be difficult to find or—even better—locked up and inaccessible. However, not only were there labeled arrows along the wall, conveniently showing us the way, once we reached the jail…
…the main doors were wide open!
Perhaps—when ‘whatever’ had happened—the guards had been in the process of passing through the doors. When they had suddenly all disappeared, the doors were left open behind them.
Or, an even better idea—maybe the doors were open simply because there had been no reason to lock them.
As in—there had been no prisoners in the jail!
* * * *
Like any good horror film (Don't go into the cellar!), it was much darker and eerier in the jail than in the front offices.
“Crap,” I whispered.
Standing at the entry, we could barely see to the far end of the cell wing. There appeared to be one long hallway leading away from us, with closed doors—four on either side.
Well, they were almost all closed—except one—which, of course, was right at the very end, in the darkest part of the hallway.
That doorway stood wide-open—as if in invitation.
And, unfortunately, in this jail, the cells weren't open-barred, where you could see who (or what!) was inside. No, this jail just had to be one of those with walled-in rooms and metal doors with tiny peek-a-boo slits at eye-level.
The only way that Jay and I would ultimately be able to know if someone was inside one of the cells would be to actually go up to the door and look inside!
“Start at the front?” Jay asked, quietly. “Or start at the back and work ourselves forward?”
“Are you insane?!” I hissed. “If we start at the back, we could get cornered if someone comes out from one of those doors!”
“Then maybe we should just call out,” she suggested. “If there's someone there, they'll let us know, right?”
“Even more insane!” I growled. “Are you forgetting that, if someone is in one of those cells, it's probably a criminal? So, why don’t we not notify the bad guys that we’re coming and just walk down the hallway, slowly and very quietly? We'll each take a side and look in all of the windows…see what's there.”
Jay nodded, speaking in a soft whisper. “Okay. Then you take the left side. I'll take the right. We'll move together.”
But neither of us took a step.
Instead, we just kept staring down at that one open door, mocking us from the dark shadows at the end of the hallway.
“This is really stupid,” I murmured. “Like really stupid.”
&nbs
p; * * * *
We both raised our sticks, high over our heads, and walked slowly forward. Reaching the first set of doors, I rose up on my tippy-toes to peek through the window. On the other side of the hallway, Jay did the same thing at her door.
Through a small slit, I could just see an empty cot on one side of the room and a metal sink and toilet on the other. With the exception of a small barred window on the far wall, there was—fortunately—nothing else to see.
Relieved, I turned to Jay, who was still looking through her cell’s tiny window. “Anything?” I whispered.
She shook her head. “You?”
I shook my head back and we started forward again—moving slowly toward the next two doors.
As before—we found the cells completely empty.
* * * *
Jay and I hesitated before moving toward the third set of cells. I don't know if it was because it was getting later in the day, or if it was simply a cloud passing in front of the sun but—suddenly—the jail became all gloom and shadows.
My heart beating fast, I leaned over and peered through the window of the third cell door on my side. Not only was this cell empty, it had no cot. There were file boxes on the floor, however, so I had to assume that the little room was being used as extra storage space.
Slowly, so as not to startle Jay, I moved over to where she was looking through her own door. “Mine is empty,” I whispered.
Not speaking, Jay pointed inside of her room, moving from the door, so that I could see for myself. Like the room on my side, this one had no cot. At the back, however—next to a filing cabinet—was a large gun safe. It was open—with two rows of semi-automatic rifles inside.
“What do you think?” Jay whispered, excited.
I reached down to the door handle and turned the knob. It clicked but didn’t open.
“We’ll have to look for the key.”
But—before we could do anything—we heard it...
…the GROAN!
* * * *
The noise was coming from the end of the hallway—the cell with the open door.
Jay actually squealed in terror.
Spinning on her heels, she raced back to the front of the hallway. I, on the other hand, stayed where I was—not out of bravery, but because I was rooted in fear.
“Come on, Kaylee!” Jay hissed from the end of the hallway.
GROAN!!...
There it was again.
I was afraid to move, afraid to make any noise that would alert whoever (or whatever) was in that open cell to my existence.
GROAN!!...
Now, you have to remember that I hadn’t wanted to come back into the jail at all. It had totally been Jay's idea.
But there we were, and somebody or something was either in terrible pain in that last cell or he was fake-moaning in order to lure us close enough, so he could capture us. In any case, probably the stupidest thing I could have done at that moment would be to—go anywhere near that open door!
GROAN!!...
There’s a problem with having a conscience, though, because—once it’s activated—I don’t really have a choice.
So, cop-sock held high, shivers running down my spine, I slowly tiptoed forward and peeked around that open door.
GROAN!!...
“Son of a gun,” I wondered out loud.
“What is it?” squeaked Jay, still not leaving her spot at the far end of the hallway.
“It's...it's...”
“What is it?!”
GROAN!!...
Jay squealed again—anticipating, no doubt, a gnarled hand reaching out to pull me inside that cell.
“It's nothing…come see.” I turned and smiled at her.
Jay was having none of that. She didn’t move. “If it's nothing, how come it's still groaning?”
“Stop being a baby, Jay! Come here and take a look.”
Not quite believing, Jay slowly moved toward me nevertheless. She held her cop-sock in both hands, prepared to either do battle or take flight at any moment.
“I'm serious, Jay. It's nothing.”
She finally reached my position. Holding the cop-sock above her head, Jay peered around the open door.
GROAN!!...
And jumped back quickly!
I burst into laughter.
“Dang it!” Jay yelled.
No prisoner…no supernatural being….just an empty cell.
“It’s the Santa Ana winds,” I told her. “They must have started up while we’ve been inside. The groaning is just a branch moving back and forth outside that window.”
The reason didn’t matter to Jay, however. She had had enough. “I want to go…I want to go now!” Jay turned and stalked off, back down the hallway.
“Wait!” I called after her. “We need to find the keys for that cage with the guns.”
“I'm not staying!”
“Jay, stop!” I cried, racing after her. “If this has proved anything, it's proved that we might need protection. I mean, what if it hadn’t been just the wind? What if it had been something else?” She spun back toward me, and I was surprised to see tears in her eyes. “Ohmigod, Jay…what's wrong? Were you really that scared?”
“Yes!” Jay hissed, practically spitting out the word. “I was scared, okay…I was really, really scared!”
“I'm sorry…but…but it was just a branch.”
“But it might not have been! Don’t you get it? It could have been a bad guy!”
“I know that.”
“Or it could have been a zombie,” she continued. “Or it could have been a vampire. And you know what?”
“What?”
“It really could have been—any of those things. Because guess what? We don't know what happened here? We don't know why everyone left, or disappeared, or were taken away. And we certainly don't know why we got left behind.” Jay was working herself up into a dark fury. “So, I'm sorry, Kaylee…but this is absolutely and completely one of the stupidest things ever!”
“But you were the one who wanted to go into the jail,” I said, confused.
“I don't mean the jail!” Jay yelled. “I mean—this!” She waved her arms all around. “I mean this...this...hell we're in. Like, it's stupid! And it's ridiculous! And it doesn't make any sense and I'm just so very, very over it!”
And with that, Jay turned and stalked off.
For a moment, I considered staying behind and searching for the key to the locked cage by myself. But as much as I would have liked to have had the firepower—at that precise moment—there was no way on earth that I was going back into that darkened corridor alone.
Forget logic—someone (or something) might just jump out and get me!
* * * *
I caught up with Jay in the lobby.
She had already leapt over the front counter with her usual agility and was heading straight for the front door. I, of course, had to scramble and slither just to make it to the top of the counter.
From there, it was—for me—a quick and awkward tumble to the floor.
“Jay, stop!” I yelled. “At least take a look outside before you head out. Make sure there isn't anything waiting.”
That stopped her.
With one hand on the door handle, she turned back to me. “Come on then,” she demanded. “Let's get out of here.”
“Wait…there's something else we should do before we go.”
“I don't care about the guns anymore.”
“I don't care either,” I told her (a white lie—I really did want a gun, more than ever now). “But what about the bulletin boards?”
“What about them?” she snapped, impatient to get moving.
“Well, we checked them when we came in here—to see if anybody else was alive and left a message.”
“And nobody did, so we can leave.”
“But…what if there is someone else alive out there? And what if they'll think about coming to the Sheriff's Station like we did? Maybe tomorrow, maybe the next day, mayb
e next week. Don’t you think we should leave a note for them?”
Jay thought about this for a moment, frowning. “What if they're a bad person and they find out where we live from the note? What then?”
“So what do you want to do, then?” I asked. “Nothing?”
Jay thought about that for a moment. Then she sighed—a big, drawn-out, this is going to be a massive waste of time—sigh.
“We can leave a note,” she finally said. “But we'll just be smart about it.”
* * * *
It took us a few minutes to figure out what exactly to write. This is what we eventually settled on:
To Whom It May Concern,
If you're still alive, know that you are not alone. There are two of us. Please write down your address, your name, and where you're staying and we will come and visit you. It may take a while before we come back, so please be patient.
Thank you
K & J :o)
* * * *
It felt weird—standing on the sidewalk in front of the Sheriff's Station.
The sun was inching toward the horizon, lengthening the shadows, while the Santa Ana winds whistled throughout the nearby buildings.
Everything looked exactly the same as when we’d arrived. However, both Jay and I had the impression that something had changed.
“I feel like we're being watched,” whispered Jay, beginning to tremble.
“I know,” I whispered back. “I feel the same thing.”
She looked to her left, toward the hill we’d just biked up. “Let’s not go the same way we came…in case those dog-coyote-things are still waiting.”
“We could head up to the 101,” I suggested. “The onramp isn’t that far away. Once we’re on the freeway, it’s a straight shot back to Agoura. We’ll get home that much quicker.”