by Alton Gansky
“Hang on a sec,” Brent said. He shot another few seconds of video, the camera’s electric light shining brightly across the ground. “Okay, fire away.”
Jack flipped the switch, and light flooded the open maw. Perry felt like he was looking down the gullet of some great fish. The direct light bathed the pit. Brent started the camera again. “This should work great.”
“Okay,” Perry said. “I’m going to try and pull back some of the boards. Brent, I want you to videotape the whole thing.”
“Will do.”
Perry went to his belly again then inched himself forward. He felt a pair of hands grab his ankles. With Jack anchoring him, he knew he wasn’t going to fall in headfirst. Placing one glove on the surface of the wood, he picked up the trowel and gently pressed the point of it in the wood. It gave easily.
“It’s seen better days,” Perry said. “The surface is a little spongy and uneven.” With his head down, blood began to rush to his brain. He could feel the pressure build. He had no desire to stay in that position longer than necessary.
He set the trowel down and began brushing dirt aside, searching for what he knew must be there. Probing fingers felt along the coarse surface. Found it—the hole the corer had bored. The digging had filled it with dirt, but Perry cleaned it out easily. The hole was large enough for him to slip in two gloved fingers. A chill ran down his spine as he wondered exactly what he was sticking his fingers into. Driving the discomfort from his mind, he gave a gentle pull. Under the glare of the work light and Brent’s video camera light, he saw the board bow slightly.
Before pulling again, he looked around the perimeter of the boards. They had been careful to clean as much dirt away from the edges as possible. He took a deep breath and tugged. The board bowed more but remained intact. Still, it gave more than fresh lumber would have. This has been buried a long time, he said to himself.
“Kinda reminds you of an old horror movie,” Brent said. “You know, something hidden behind the locked door or in the closet or something.”
Perry turned toward the bright light of the video camera and scowled. “Did I just hear young Mr. Hapgood volunteer for a stint in upside-down excavation?”
“That’s what I heard,” Jack said.
“Me too,” added Gleason.
“No way,” Brent said quickly. “They teach us at Caltech not to get into situations like this.”
Perry returned his attention to the task. Positioning his left hand directly under him, he tightened his fingers in the bore hole and pulled. The plank that he used for counterforce bowed down as the board with the core hole bowed up but remained fixed. Perry relaxed for a moment.
“You want me to give it a try?” Jack asked.
Jack could do the job all right, but this was something that Perry wanted to do for himself. “What, and give you something to hold over my head for years to come?”
“Pride goes before a fall,” Jack said and loosened his grip on Perry’s ankles. For a moment, Perry was certain that he was going to drop face first into the pit.
“Very funny,” Perry cried. “Now, if you don’t mind, hang on to me. I’m going to apply a little more muscle.”
“Oh, so you do want me to do it,” Jack jibed.
Perry chose to ignore him. He dug his fingers into the hole a little deeper and curled them to grip the wood. Perry yanked and pulled, grunting with each effort. On the fourth tug a hunk of wood gave way. Perry tossed it up to Gleason. The bore hole was now large enough to admit Perry’s whole hand. Able to get a better grip as a result, Perry gave a hard jerk. The lower section gave way, some of the wood crumbling at the edges and in his hand. The piece was too large to toss up the grade, especially from Perry’s inverted position. He started to say something, but Gleason had anticipated the need. He reached down with bare hands and took the chunk of lumber.
“Feels slimy,” he complained.
“So would you if you had been buried down there,” Jack said.
“It’s a plank, all right,” Gleason said. “About two inches thick, I’d say.”
“That’s what I like about engineers,” Brent said. “The precision of their conversation.”
“Hey, Perry,” Gleason said. “Brent really wants to come down there.”
“Okay, okay,” Brent said. “I’ll be quiet.”
Perry ignored the banter. He recognized it as nerves, something he understood. He switched the position of his hands so that he could grab the remaining half of the central plank. He pulled and the lumber came free easily. “Got it.”
“Hang on,” Gleason said. “Let me come around.” A shadow fell over the opening as Gleason stood in front of the work light, leaving only the weaker light of the video camera.
A second later Perry felt his friend take the board from his hand. He could feel the pounding of his heart in his head as it tried to compensate for his inverted position.
“Got it.”
“You’re in my light, buddy,” Perry said. The exertion and the added blood pressure in his head made Perry feel dizzy. Sweat was running into his eyes and his vision was blurring.
“Sorry.”
He could tell that Gleason had stepped aside because the light once again flooded the pit. Perry blinked hard and tried to focus his eyes. At first he saw a glint of metal, then a dark, dirty white tube, like PVC. The synapse in his brain started firing madly as he realized that the tube was not a tube at all, but a long bone. Instinctively, Perry pulled back an inch and turned his head, only to find himself staring into the empty eye sockets of a skull. Where once eyes had been, there were vacant holes.
“Yeow!” Perry shouted. Suddenly he was moving, not by choice but because Jack had pulled him up in a single, fluid motion. One moment he was staring into the face of a dead man, the next, he was face down on the ground. He was instantly thankful.
Quickly, Perry righted himself and came to his feet. His heart rattled in his chest. He leaned over and placed his hands on his knees, forcing his heart to slow and his breathing to ease.
“You okay, pal?” Jack asked. Perry could hear the concern in his voice.
“I was expecting to see that, but . . . I wasn’t expecting to see that. If that makes any sense.” Perry inhaled deeply then stepped to the edge of the opening, an opening that could now properly be called a grave.
“It makes sense to me,” Jack offered. “It’s not every day you pop open a coffin.”
“Oh, major cool,” Brent said.
Perry exchanged glances with his friends then watched as Brent approached the edge of the opening. He squatted down to get the camera a little closer.
“Cool?” Gleason asked.
“More than cool,” Brent said. “Beyond cool. No one at school is going to believe this. Do we pull up the rest of the boards?”
“No,” Perry said as he returned to the edge of the hole, brushing dirt from his shirt and pants.
“But I can’t get a good shot. I can only see part of the skeleton.”
“We wait,” Perry said firmly. “We have to make sure this is chronicled correctly. It’s time to call in our expert.”
“Expert?” Brent asked.
“We have a staff archeologist at Sachs Engineering,” Perry explained. “You build in enough places and sooner or later you’re going to dig something up that may be important.”
“This has happened before?”
“Not like this,” Perry answered. “Not to me.”
“So what are we going to do?” Brent pressed.
“Jack,” Perry began. “Let’s get a cover on this and set up some stakes and construction tape.”
“I have a tarp. I’ll stake that to the ground.”
“Good. I’ll let you take care of that. In the meantime, I’m going back to the motel to place a phone call.”
“What’s he wearing?” Brent asked. “It looks like metal.”
“It’s . . .” Perry began. He looked back in the pit. “It’s a shield. Now let’s call it a day.�
�
“SHIELD?” DAWES WHISPERED to himself. He adjusted the headset that allowed him to hear the conversation being picked up by the parabolic “spy” microphone. “This is getting weird.” He checked the tape deck that he was using to record the conversation. The cassette was running out of tape. He was thinking of changing it when he heard the words, “Let’s call it a day.”
“It’s about time,” he mumbled. “This isn’t my idea of fun.” Through the binoculars, he saw the man he had come to know through his monitoring as Perry walking away. “If he’s calling it a day, then so am I.”
Dawes shut off the recorder, took off the headset, and rolled onto his back. He had been lying behind a tree for the last four hours, and every muscle in his body ached. Bed is going to feel good tonight, he told himself. Dinner and bed. That was the ticket.
Tomorrow he’d give his report to the mighty Mr. Olek and send him a bill—a big one.
Chapter 9
JOSEPH HENRI GAVE no response when Claire dropped the bowls of macaroni and cheese. His attention was fixed on the wide, dull white paper stretched over the dining room table. His head hovered above the drawing by an inch, his nose by a fraction of an inch.
He drew another line. Claire ignored the mess on the carpet and stepped behind her son to study the artwork. There were two drawings, something she hadn’t noticed before. Joseph worked diligently on the second, his thin shoulders and large head blocking most of it from view. To his right, there was a drawing that Claire could see clearly. It was unlike anything he had done before. The landscape picture of green hills and oak trees had been a departure from his usual detailed drawings of animals, but this was beyond anything she could imagine him doing.
“What does this mean?” she asked Joseph in a whisper. Joseph gave no indication of hearing her. He pressed the crayon down, moving it slowly along the paper, then he set the crayon down and rubbed the line with his finger, forcing the colored material into the fiber of the paper. He did this anytime he drew, regardless of the medium he was using: pencil, chalk, or markers. The material stained his fingertips. Claire had cleaned those fingers every night for many years.
The picture was dark, ominous, like the foreboding image on the cover of a suspense novel. It chilled her. More frightening than the dark hues was the setting of the image. It was a setting she knew well; she’d been living in it for close to a quarter of a century. She was staring at a startlingly realistic portrayal of the place she and Joseph called home. She could see the windows with the stygian gloom of night pressing in. She recognized the living room furniture, the fireplace, and even the cantilevered brass lamp that bowed on its support over the worn leather sofa.
The front door was also easy to recognize, but what she couldn’t identify was the dark figure just inside the opening. Joseph had drawn the image in silhouette black, featureless, like a ghost draped in black satin. Something was in the specter’s hand. The object seemed small and lacked sufficient detail to be identified.
A frigid uneasiness swept over Claire. Not wanting to do so, but feeling compelled by a curiosity stronger then her fear, she placed a hand on Joseph’s shoulder and gently pulled back. She had to see the next picture.
The doorbell rang. Claire jumped back, gasped, and raised a hand to her mouth. “Oh,” she said to Joseph. “That scared me.” She lowered her hand to her chest. Her heart was tripping like a machine gun. She took a deep breath.
“Uh . . . uhh . . . uhh.” Joseph began to rock in his chair, fingering a green crayon in his hand.
Again the bell rang. The sound of it seemed sharper, louder than it should. Claire walked to the door, placed a hand on the doorknob. She stopped. Joseph’s drawing flashed to her mind. She swallowed. “Who . . . who is it?”
“Mrs. Henri?” A woman’s voice. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mrs. Henri, but I’m here about your husband.”
Husband? She weighed the wisdom of stating that he had died. Claire looked through the peephole in the door. She could make out a figure, but it was too dark to see more than the fact that someone stood on her porch. She flipped a switch next to the door, and the front porch light came on. Again she placed her eye to the peephole. A woman stood outside. The fish-eye lens allowed Claire to see the visitor was well dressed and carried a briefcase.
“My husband is not here right now,” Claire said, choosing not to reveal that she and Joseph were alone.
“Yes, ma’am, I know,” the woman said. “My name is Veronica, and I’m with the life insurance company. I’m here to straighten things out, to clear up a mistake.”
“I’m not aware of any mistakes,” Claire said.
“Yes, ma’am. I work with the auditing department. You were underpaid. We owe you money.”
Claire took a step back from the door. She had received a small settlement from the life insurance policy Jamison’s school provided. It had been enough to cover burial costs, but little more.
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Claire said through the door.
“If I might have a moment of your time, I can explain,” the woman said.
Claire looked through the peephole again and saw just the woman. Unlocking the door, she opened it a few inches and peered around the door and past the jamb. The woman smiled, revealing a perfect row of white teeth.
“I’m sorry to bother you at . . .” she stopped and looked at her watch. “Oh, I didn’t realize it was after six. I’m going to have to hurry.”
“Hurry?” Claire said.
“Yes, I have to catch a plane back to Los Angeles in less than an hour. This evening has been a nightmare. I flew in to give you this check and get your signature. My rental car broke down, and I had to have it towed. The rental agency gave me another car, but the whole thing took much longer than it should. Actually, it shouldn’t have happened at all.”
“You flew here from L.A. just to give me a check? Couldn’t you have mailed it?”
“Normally we would, but it requires a signature first which means we would have to send you the form to sign, wait for you to send it back, then requisition the check, wait for it to be processed, then lose more time mailing it to you. I had to come up here to audit one of our local offices, so I volunteered to bring it myself. Your case is . . . special to me.”
“Special?”
The woman looked down; her dark hair fell around her face. She took in a lungful of air then released it. “Like your husband, my husband was killed by an act of violence. It was road rage. Someone didn’t like the way my husband was driving, pulled a gun, and killed him. It happens in L.A., but until then it was something I only heard about on the news. So, I thought I’d bring the check myself and see how you’re doing.”
“I’m so sorry,” Claire said as she pulled the door back. “Please come in.” As the woman passed, Claire could see that she was dressed in a black, professional-looking pantsuit.
“I promise not to take long. I really need to get to the airport.”
Claire closed the door. “I appreciate the extra effort,” she said as she twisted the latch on the door, locking it, a habit of many years. “You said your name was Veronica?”
There was no answer. Claire turned and saw the woman standing next to Joseph. He was leaning away from her.
“Uh . . . uhh.”
“You must be Joseph,” the woman said with a broad smile. She looked down. “It looks likes you had a little accident.”
“Yes, I dropped our dinner.”
The woman pulled one of the dining room chairs back and set the briefcase on it. Popping the latches, she swung the top open, reached in, and removed a small object. Claire recognized it immediately. The stranger she had let in the house was holding a syringe. With no hesitation, the woman removed the plastic shield from the needle, turned to Joseph, and jammed the needle through his shirt and into the meaty part of his shoulder, then pressed the plunger.
“Owww . . . ahhh . . . uhh . . . uhh.”
“No!” Claire shouted, but t
he attack was over before she could take a step. “What have you done?” She started forward but seized mid-step as the woman raised the hypo to Joseph’s neck.
“Don’t make me hurt your son.” Deftly the attacker pulled the plunger back. “There’s nothing but air in the hypo now, but air in the carotid artery would be . . . unpleasant for your son.”
“What do you want?” Claire demanded, tears flooding her eyes. Her son was in danger, and there was nothing she could do about it.
“I want you and your boy.”
“What did you put in him?”
“I poisoned him, Mrs. Henri. But not to worry, I have an antidote.”
“Why would you poison my son?”
“We don’t have time for twenty questions,” the woman snapped. “The injection will begin working in a few moments, and your son will be dead in thirty minutes if he doesn’t receive the counteragent before then.”
“I’m calling the police.” Claire started for the phone.
“Feel free, but by the time they get Joseph to a hospital, do a blood draw, and identify the toxin, he will be dead. So make your call, Mrs. Henri. Just know that you will be killing your son when you do.”
“What . . . I mean . . .”
“Let me fill you in. We’re going for a ride in my car. We’re going to leave in the next sixty seconds. Any longer and we run the risk of Joseph leaving this world. Once we get to our destination, I will inject him with the antitoxin. Got it?”
Joseph rubbed his shoulder. “Owwww.”
“Okay, okay. Let’s go.”
The woman looked down at the table. “What are these
drawings?”
“It’s just something Joseph does.”
“Really? Interesting. Especially this one of your living room.” Claire saw the woman’s eyes track to the other drawing. “This is fascinating too. I’m taking it with me. Get your son. Remember, give me any grief and your son will not see the sunrise tomorrow.”