The Thing At Black Hole Lake
Page 16
“Sladan.” Gertie took the phone. “You’re amazing. This piece would go great in the satire section, if we had a satire section, which we don’t. Where’s the real article?”
“The, uh –” Lucy lowered her voice so her mother wouldn’t hear – “real article? That is the article. Every word is true.”
There was silence on the other line. Errol whimpered for more apple. Lucy gave him the rest of her half-eaten piece of fruit. For a moment the phone seemed to have gone dead. Had Gertie put her on mute?
“Right,” Gertie said at last. “Listen, I’m gonna be straight with you. We can’t use any of this. I told you from the start I was interested in the Truth, not some made-up mumbo jumbo. It’s a fun story. A secret underground lair, mad scientists, our English teacher’s wife as the ringleader of an inhuman species of shapeshifters. You should consider submitting it to the annual fiction anthology. I bet Mrs Stricks’d get a kick out of it.”
Lucy’s knees felt weak.
Willow chased Errol across the floor, then stopped to stare at her big sister, who was looking paler by the second. “What’s wrong?” she mouthed.
“But it’s the Truth, Gertie,” said Lucy. “I swear. How else do you think the factory got destroyed?”
“Oh, that mystery’s been solved. Did you know that fracking can cause earthquakes?”
“Fracking? Like, breaking the ground open to get oil?”
“That’s right,” said Gertie. “Word on the mycelium network is there’s a whole mess of it under Sticky Pines. That explains why they’re still tearing down the forest despite not producing any Nucralose. Oil’s what Fisher’s really after.”
“What is this network you keep mentioning?” Lucy asked.
“It was on the news.”
Lucy leaned over the island to see the TV. Her mother was watching tensely as a female news anchor wearing a truckload of make-up interviewed Mr Fisher. The words “Fracking Accident Destroys Nu Co. Plant” scrolled across the bottom of the screen. Lucy’s jaw fell open. No.
“These big-city oil-mongers think they can get away with tearing small towns apart with no consequences,” Gertie proclaimed loudly in Lucy’s ear. “Causing explosions, earthquakes and spill after greasy spill. Well, not on our watch!” Lucy pictured Gertie standing on a chair in Tex’s kitchen. “The climate crisis must be addressed, not in a year, not in a week, but TODAY—” And then, in muffled tones: “That’s good, get that down, Arkhipov. There’s our front-page op-ed.”
Lucy heard Tex typing in the background. “The truth must out!” he shouted.
“Sorry it didn’t work out, Sladan,” said Gertie. “I’ll, uh, see you when I see you.” She hung up.
Lucy stared at the phone. What just happened? This was it. The best chance she’d ever had to get the Truth out to the world, and somehow she’d been foiled again.
“I believe you,” said Willow. She handed Lucy half the clementine she’d just peeled.
“Huh?” said Lucy, slumping on to the stool. She hung up the phone and looked at the small orange in her hand as if unsure what it was. “You didn’t even read the article I wrote.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Willow crossed her arms. “You’re my sister and I believe whatever you believe. Even if it’s dumb.”
Lucy smiled ruefully. “Thanks, Will.” She ruffled Willow’s fringe, then joined her mother in the living room.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” said Miranda, staring at the news broadcast in shock. “I thought that factory would be around forever. Everyone did.” She held her face in her palms. “Just when you think you’ve got a handle on things…”
“Something comes along and pulls the rug out from under you,” said Lucy.
Miranda took her daughter’s hand, not caring that it was sticky with clementine juice. “I don’t want you to worry, okay? This is a very big challenge for us, but everything will feel normal again before you know it.”
“Thanks, Mom.” Lucy spotted something sticking halfway out from under the couch: Willow’s missing puzzle piece. She picked it up and plugged it into the last slot of the jigsaw on the coffee table. “We’ll figure it out.”
The Nu Co. disaster site was cordoned off with police tape and surrounded by fire trucks with red and blue lights flashing. A team of men in yellow hazmat suits combed the area with detectors that clicked and beeped. Wisps of smoke rose from the depths of the open chasm, which was now ringed by heavy cranes dangling long metal winches into its bowels.
“Salvage anything you can,” Murl barked into a loudspeaker. He stood on the steps of a mobile office parked on the remnants of what was once Nu Co.’s parking lot. “Leave no rock unturned.”
“Are you sure we can’t use any of my officers?” asked Sheriff Pryce, her hazmat suit tucked untidily into her cowboy boots. “They know this area better’n anybody.”
“There’s no need for police presence, ma’am,” Murl assured her, the low sun glinting off his aviator sunglasses. “Fracking materials are highly hazardous, and the ground remains unstable. Best leave it to the private sector.”
The sheriff leaned against the railing. “Fracking,” she grouched. “I thought this was a sweetener operation, pure and simple. Why on the round blue Earth were you going underground?”
“I’m sure Mr Fisher’s got all the relevant paperwork,” Murl responded.
“We’ll be seein’ about that.” Sheriff Pryce stormed off to her patrol car at the base of the Nu Co. driveway.
Murl sniffed. “At least the orchard’s toast,” he muttered to himself. “We’ll be leaving this ramshackle village of freaks once and for all.” There was a crackle and a distorted voice sounded from the satchel at Murl’s side. “Sir?”
Murl retrieved his walkie-talkie. “I copy, Fandango. What’s up?”
“Sir, there’s something down here I think you’re gonna want to see.”
Ugh. “Copy that.” Murl tucked away the walkie-talkie. “This place,” he grumbled, as he marched through a pathway littered with broken branches and sharp, twisted stumps.
He reached the team working the crane, and with their assistance he strapped himself securely into a harness. A pair of men, their faces obscured by hard hats and breathing masks, attached him to the hook on the crane’s lead, then lowered him into the smouldering ravine.
The darkness of the cavern engulfed him. Murl switched on the torchlight at his shoulder. The journey down took nearly a half an hour, as he was gently lowered past twisted metal girders and sparkling valueless rock formations. By the time he reached the bottom of the pit, he was livid.
“This better be good,” he growled as his feet found solid yellow rock. Behind him on the ruined cavern wall were the last vestiges of stupid child-like carvings of deer and chickens with some nonsense symbols thrown in. “Didn’t even have a podcast to listen to…” he grumbled. “No reception…”
A scientist in protective gear ran up to him excitedly. “It’s over there, sir.” He pointed to an area where five workers were bent over, examining a narrow chasm in the floor with torches. “We’re not sure what it is, but it could be something big.”
Murl brushed past him. He joined the others and knelt on the ground, directing his torchlight downwards. He stopped short. Unbelievable. “That better not be what I think it is.”
“I’ve got a sample of it right here.” A woman held out a beaker filled with a dense syrupy liquid.
Murl’s face fell. He stuck a finger into the beaker and let the gloppy black substance run over his glove, like glue.
Son of a… Murl glowered as he peered into the accursed cleft. There was no way around it – he’d have to tell Fisher. And once he did, Nu Co. would not be going anywhere after all. For flowing beneath his feet was a vast river of something dark, thick, and very, very sticky.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I offer my sincerest thanks to the following: my savvy and stylish agent Laura West; my editors Maurice Lyon and Kirsty Stansfield; the team at No
sy Crow, whether working from home during quarantine or at the Crow’s Nest; my brilliant cover illustrator Bill Bragg; my first fan and earliest reader Anna Tullis; my fabulous friends and indispensable cultural liaisons Asya and Paul Mourraille and Spooky Ruño; the Swaggers – an oasis of good prose and saucy GIFs in a mad, mad world; my mother Maribeth and brother Jesse for their enthusiastic support of all things Sticky Pines; Monkey, my constant companion and guiding light into the unknown; and, of course, JGR, without whose warm dedication, unsparing assistance, and late night semantic debatery this book would not exist.
Encounter of a Weird Kind
After all the times she had insisted that something was out there, after all the times no one believed her, after the lifetime of sniggering she had endured – tonight, Lucy Sladan would prove she was right.
With a CLICK, she loaded a roll of film into the old camera she had “borrowed” from her parents. She needed proof, the kind that was hard to fake. People of the world, she thought, prepare to learn the Truth.
Her skin tingled with excitement. She still couldn’t quite believe it. Just the night before, while taking the dog out for a gallop in the woods, Lucy had seen something in the sky; something that looked remarkably, amazingly, like the out-of-focus flying objects pictured on her favourite website: TheTruthHasLanded.org.
A flash of lightning outside the round attic window cast jagged shadows across the sloped walls. For a fleeting moment, Lucy’s bedroom seemed full of motion. She twisted a lock of purple hair and counted out six Mississippis before she heard the corresponding rumble of thunder. Pushing her plastic-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose, she reread a highlighted article in yesterday’s newspaper:
SECOND DISAPPEARANCE
IN STICKY PINES
Beloved candy-store owner, Mandy Millepoids, 66, has been reported missing. He was last seen birdwatching in Molasses Grove on the evening of September 1. Meanwhile, police are still searching for factory worker Alastair Chelon, 37, last seen fishing at Black Hole Lake on August 17. Authorities are looking into sightings of large wild animals in the area.
Wild animals, Lucy scoffed. She knew the truth. These guys weren’t attacked. They were abducted. By ALIENS.
She imagined the article they would write about her tomorrow: Lucy Sladan, 12-year-old genius, rescues missing Sticky Pines residents while awesomely confirming once and for all the existence of extraterrestrials. Former critics are amazed and deeply apologetic.
All she needed to do now was sneak out without getting caught.
A knock on the door sent the newspaper flying out of her hands in a dozen fluttering pieces. Her nine-year-old sister Willow entered without waiting for an invitation. Lucy wondered why she bothered to hang the “Keep Out, Unbelievers” sign on the door.
“What are you doing up here?” asked Willow. “Listening for radio signals from space?”
“Too much cloud cover.” Lucy glanced at the clipping from The ET Bee pinned to the corkboard above her desk. The headline read: “Do Aliens Use Bad Weather to Hide from Sight?” Lucy knew the answer: You bet they flippin’ do. She gathered up the newspaper and put it back together in no particular order. “I think I’m gonna hit the hay early tonight.”
“Your bedtime’s not for two hours,” said Willow.
“What can I say?” Lucy stretched her arms and yawned, fairly convincingly. “I’m bushed.”
“You’re not in your pyjamas.”
“I was … just about to change.” Keep it together, Lucita. Sneaking out is all in the details. She had googled it.
Willow kicked a pile of dirty clothes and hopped over to sit on the rumpled bed. “Did you hear there was another Bigfoot sighting?” She chewed the strings of her pink unicorn hoodie. “Dad says Sasquatches only eat boys, but Mom says they’re equal opportunity.”
Lucy snorted. “Please. Only babies and tourists believe in dumb stuff like Bigfoot.”
“You believe in fairies,” Willow sneered.
“I believe in transdimensional beings who’ve been MISTAKEN for fairies.”
“Whatever.” Willow rolled her eyes. “Errol ran off after dinner again. You’re not supposed to feed him people food.”
“Eating only dog food is boring, Will.” Lucy checked the clock. “Did you want something?”
“Mom and Dad wanna know if you’re gonna come make up songs with us,” said Willow.
Three nights in a row? “Thanks for the invite, but like I said, I’m bushed.”
“It’s only eight o’clock,” Willow complained. “What are you, five?” She picked up a toy Yoda from the bookshelf and started messing with its ears.
Lucy snatched the precious Jedi out of her hands. “OK, time to go.”
“I wasn’t gonna break your doll.”
“Figurine,” Lucy corrected. She scooted her sister out to the golden pine landing. “Tell Mom and Dad not to wake me up. It’s a school night.”
“Fine.” Willow stuck out her tongue and, mercifully, headed downstairs.
Lucy turned off all the lights and got into bed fully clothed. She stared impatiently into darkness until it was well past Willow’s nine o’clock bedtime. Nobody came upstairs to check on her. It’s time.
TO BE CONTINUED…
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2020 by Nosy Crow Ltd
The Crow’s Nest, 14 Baden Place,
Crosby Row, London SE1 1YW
Nosy Crow and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Nosy Crow Ltd
Text © Dashe Roberts, 2020
Cover and chapter opener illustrations copyright © Bill Bragg, 2020
The right of Dashe Roberts to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978 1 78800 817 4
eISBN: 978 1 78800 818 1
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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