I punch, literally punch, the radio’s power button, but all I manage to do is spin the volume up. Steven Tyler howls in my ear. The vibrating speakers make him sound like a smoker with an artificial voice box. I tap the button more carefully, despite the racket, and silence fills the cab once more.
My neck cracks as I roll it, releasing my music-induced tension. “Welcome to Maine,” I say, doing my best DJ impression, “home of the seventies, eighties, nineties, and...that’s it.”
I should probably invest in a new stereo system someday. Hell, I should probably buy a car with anti-lock brakes, eighteen airbags and all the other things most people care about. But that would require an effort beyond my actual desire to replace Betty.
Yeah, I named my truck. Betty was the name of my first girlfriend. Like this truck, she had a grating voice and a high maintenance personality. Despite girlfriend-Betty being easier on the eyes, I stayed with her for only six months. Pickup truck-Betty talks less. And doesn’t complain when I turn her on. We’ve been together for going on five years now, and even though she’s rough around the edges, she’s just about the only thing in my life that makes any sense.
I glance in the rearview. The road behind me is as empty as the road ahead. I catch a glimpse of my face in the mirror and shake my head. I don’t look like a DHS agent. DHS—Department of Homeland Security. Most of the people working for the DHS are straight-shooting, tight-ass suits. An inordinate percentage of the men have mustaches, like they’re 70s porn stars or 1900s Englishmen ready to engage in some old fashioned fisticuffs.
Of course, I am sporting the beginning of a beard myself, but that’s less of a style choice and more of a result of my ancient shaver, pilfered from my father when I moved out ten years ago, crapping out a week ago. I think it looks good, but if any of my superiors saw it, I’d probably get a good talking to. Proper dress. Appearances matter. That kind of stuff. It’s a good thing my superiors don’t give a rat’s ass about me or my department. I don’t think I’ve seen or heard from someone with a higher pay scale than mine in the last six months.
I adjust the maroon beanie cap covering my crew-cut brown hair. The tight-fitting knit hat has become a staple of my wardrobe, and it is a style choice, mostly because it disguises the fact that my hair is slowly retreating like soldiers from my muddy battlefield. I think it makes me look like The Edge, from U2, a band of the eighties, nineties, and today that I actually wouldn’t mind hearing on the radio.
My smartphone—which is really a company phone—cuts through the silence, saying, “Turn right,” in a far from sexy, yet feminine voice that is the closest thing I’ve had to a girlfriend in a year. Other than Betty, I mean. I spot the dirt road up ahead and turn onto the uneven surface. The road is covered in half buried stones the size of grapefruits and rows of hardened ridges formed by water, which, in combination with Betty’s rigid suspension, bounces me around like I’m on a grocery-store horsey ride, having a seizure.
Twenty minutes and a headache later, I arrive at my destination. I pull the truck into the lone parking space, put it in park and kill the engine. The car door creaks as it opens, allowing the outside world to wash over me. Warm summer air chases away the chill of Betty’s air conditioning, which works like a champ. The smell of pine and earth and, I think, water, fills my nose.
It’s been too long.
Once upon a time, I’d been a real salt of the Earth type. I camped, fished, hunted, slept under the stars and smoked a doobie or two. It’s been at least ten years of indoor and pot-free living since then. Thank God I’m not in drug enforcement. I’d be horrible at it, mostly because I think I’d let all of the potheads walk.
The small cabin is on loan to me from Ted Watson, one of two people I actually oversee. I’m supposed to hire two more team members out of whatever law enforcement branch I can entice them from, but I haven’t really bothered. Seeing as how every case I have is like a bad episode of The X-Files, but without the actual monsters, aliens and government conspiracies, I just don’t see the need to deal with more personalities.
Not that Ted is hard to deal with. He’s kind of like a grown up version of Chunk, from The Goonies—chubby, funny and he occasionally breaks into a jiggly dance. He’s also brilliant with computers and electronics. I’m pretty sure he got posted to my team because, like me, he doesn’t exactly fit the company profile. Anne Cooper, on the other hand, does. Cooper, who I call Coop, mostly because it bothers her, is a straight-laced administrator who does things by the book, even though so little of our mandate is in any book not written by a fiction author, a lunatic or both.
They’ve been with me for three years now, manning the home front—a house perched atop Prospect Hill in Beverly, Massachusetts. From the top floor you can see the ocean and, on a clear day, Boston. It’s a nice place to live and work, but it’s not the great outdoors.
Believe it or not, I’m not on vacation. I’m working. Watson’s family just happened to have a cabin in the area, and I felt like being nostalgic for a night before beginning my “investigation.”
With a shake of my head, I push away thoughts of the ridiculous day I’ll have tomorrow and hop up the steps to the front door. Despite the apparent disuse of the cabin, the porch wood feels firm beneath my feet. Maybe it’s faux worn, I wonder, like those beat-up looking hutches made for rich old ladies who want to have rustic kitchens without the actual rust.
I dig into my pocket for the key while scanning the area. Most of the trees are pines, though a few maples line the dirt road, their leaves glowing lime green in the afternoon sun. There’s no mailbox or even a number on the cabin. As I pull the key from my pocket, I lean back and peer down the road. Nothing. And there wasn’t a single house on the way here, which suits me, because while I don’t have any doobies, I do have a twelve-pack buried in a cooler full of ice.
I’m not supposed to drink on the job, but I’m not technically working right now and I’m pretty good at warding off hangovers. Besides, I’m pretty sure that even drunk off my ass, I’ll be able to figure out the mystery of Sasquatch.
Yeah, Sasquatch.
Fucking Sasquatch.
I work for the Department of Homeland Security, and I’m investigating a rash of squatch sightings in the northern woods of Boonie-town, Maine. When the DHS was created in 2002, in the wake of 9-11, the bill was loaded with “riders,” tacked-on provisions that wouldn’t normally pass if they weren’t attached to something guaranteed to pass, like the creation of the DHS. Riders usually have nothing to do with the actual bill, but the one that created my division did. The DHS has seventy Fusion Centers around the country. They’re hubs where intel and resources from federal and local law enforcement agencies can be pooled in an effort to openly share information between departments—something that might have helped avoid the events of 9-11. Each hub has its own lead investigator tasked with investigations that affect multiple law enforcement agencies, and that are a threat to national security. That’s me, lead investigator, except my Fusion Center has yet to be involved in any serious investigation. Fusion Centers are most commonly identified by the city they’re in, such as Fusion Center – Boston, my closest neighbor in the DHS, otherwise known as “those assholes in Beantown”.
The Fusion Center I head up is known as Fusion Center – P. The P is for “paranormal”. Seriously. The supernatural paranoid who added the rider believed the end of the world was nigh and that it would be a supernatural event. That’s also why we’re located in Beverly, Mass, next door neighbor to Salem, Mass. Salem being the apparent gateway to hell and home to the gruesome Salem witch trials, as well as scores of modern witches like Susan Beacon, who claimed she caused the “perfect storm” with a curse. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t praise the good Lord she made that claim before my stint at the FC-P began or I would have had to investigate it as a threat against the United States.
FC-P is the seventy-first Fusion Center and it doesn’t technically exist. You won’t find us
in any public documentation. Despite its creation, the FC-P is pretty much an embarrassment. That’s why the ‘Paranormal’ on our IDs was reduced to the letter P.
The deadbolt unlocks smoothly, barely making a sound. I push the door open and step in. The dim room holds two comfortable looking rocking chairs, a dining room table, a wood stove and what appears to be a large, black bean bag. I try the lights, but nothing happens.
The breakers, I think, vaguely remembering Ted saying something about them being shut off. I move to take a step into the cabin, and freeze before I leave the doorframe.
The bean bag moved.
I reach for my gun, but find it missing. It’s in the truck. Haven’t worn it in two years. Imaginary creatures and specters don’t normally pose a threat.
Before I can think of what to do next, the screen door finally decides to slam shut behind me. The bean bag explodes with motion, rearing up a round head the size of a large pumpkin. Two large black eyes fix on me with unwavering focus.
Moving with slow, measured movements, the bear stands. It’s just about the same height as me, but is probably upwards of seven hundred pounds. I raise my hand in an “its okay” posture, like the bear will understand it, and I back away, but I don’t get far. My back smacks into the closed screen door, which makes a loud snapping sound.
The spooked bear huffs angrily, throws itself forward and charges.
###
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About the Author
JEREMY ROBINSON is the author of thirty novels and novellas including the highly praised, SECONDWORLD, as well as PULSE, INSTINCT, THRESHOLD and RAGNAROK the first four books in his exciting Jack Sigler series. His novels have been translated into ten languages. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife and three children. Visit him online at: www.jeremyrobinsononline.com
ALSO BY JEREMY ROBINSON
New Standalone Novels
SecondWorld
Project Nemesis
Island 731
The Jack Sigler Novels
Pulse
Instinct
Threshold
The Chess Team Novellas (Chesspocalypse Series)
Callsign: King - Book 1
Callsign: Queen - Book 1
Callsign: Rook - Book 1
Callsign: King - Book 2 - Underworld
Callsign: Bishop - Book 1
Callsign: Knight - Book 1
Callsign: Deep Blue - Book 1
Callsign: King - Book 3 - Blackout
The Origins Editions (First five novels)
The Didymus Contingency
Raising The Past
Beneath
Antarktos Rising
Kronos
The Last Hunter
(Antarktos Saga Series)
The Last Hunter - Descent
The Last Hunter - Pursuit
The Last Hunter - Ascent
The Last Hunter - Lament
The Last Hunter - Onslaught
Writing as Jeremy Bishop
Torment
The Sentinel
The Raven
5 Onslaught Page 23