Becky’s car is still there, and my anxiety grows with the returning rumblings of the pending crises. I was hoping one or the other was gone. Someone is going to meet their maker soon and I can only get down on my knees and pray that it not be my daughter. If it means it must be someone else, then so be it. Is that too much to allow a father—favoritism for his little girl? But this is not my choice. Death is about to come in spite of me and I must live my true hell in fear that it might be my Becky. I park with nervous trepidation.
Becky’s keys dangle from the ignition of her car. It is quiet. Eerie quiet. I go up to the house and bang the door knocker several times. There is no response. I bang twice more, wait a few seconds and then turn away and walk back down to the end of the stone walkway where I stop and stand with my hands in my pockets, listening and feeling. There is nothing except my own gut twisting in anticipated dread. This is how I’d imagine a ghost town would be like—a real ghost town that is; not one rebuilt for tourist entertainment. I imagine huge balls of sagebrush rolling down the dirt road, except there is no wind, nor is there any sagebrush. I expect to turn around and face an ugly hombre with a pair of Colt 45s pointed at me, or maybe a pair of seven inch saber teeth. The hairs on the back of my neck rise; I whip around, ready to defend myself with my face. There is only Aileen standing just outside her front door.
I let the ghost town notion dissolve into thoughts of Brian’s theory. The spirit who brings with her a cat with long knives for teeth. Spirit town.
Spirit town!
“They haven’t come back yet,” she says.
The Spirit of Smilodon in Spirit town.
“They shouldn’t have gone up there. Matt knows better.”
“What do you mean, he knows better? Are you saying there are sabre-toothed cats up there?”
“Might be.”
Up to that point I had some concerns, about the same as the possibility that they would run into a grizzly. “Didn’t you say that they don’t bother people, that we’re not worth the trouble?”
“I did . . . but.”
I walk over to the Blazer and grab Brian’s radio from the passenger seat. “Becky! Matt!” There’s no response. I point the radio at Aileen. “Brian said this had a five mile range.”
“On a good day,” she says.
“Is this a good day?”
“I think so.”
“Then why aren’t they answering?”
“Batteries dead or out of range.”
“They wouldn’t have gone more than five miles, would’ve they?”
“I wouldn’t think so, but they’re young.”
“Would Matt have turned it off?”
“No. That’s also his GPS receiver and compass. That’s his lifeblood out there and he knows it. He also carries backup batteries.” Sam is now standing in the dirt next to me looking toward the trail she says they went up. “I don’t like it. Let me see.” She takes the radio from me, fiddles with it and then says, “Matt! This is Sam! Pick up!”
There’s ten seconds of silence and then through low level static, a few words. All I get are, “rocks,” “safe,” and “four.”
“Say again!” Aileen responds.
The static is punctuated with a male voice. There are no more intelligible words.
“Where are you?”
“. . . eight . . .” There is more static than voice, and much of the voice is broken. “. . . sent Dad . . . scat . . .”
“Do you have any idea what he’s saying?” she asks me.
I’m too busy listening to shake my head no.
“Can’t . . . sky . . . dangerous . . . Rhino.”
“We can’t hear you very well! Say again!” Now there’s a lot more static and fewer clear words. The only one I can make out at first is, “need” and then later “radar” and “booth” come through, followed by Becky’s voice and the words, “Dad” and “Okay.” The look on Aileen’s face says she heard something I didn’t. She hands me the radio. “See if you can find out where they are. I’ll be right back.” She dashes into the house.
“Where are you?” I hold the radio up to my ear as I walk toward the break in the trees where the trail disappears. There’s no response. I repeat my words and start up the trail.
“Wait!” Aileen screams. She’s carrying a canvas bag and is sprinting across the yard toward the garage. She slips under a garage door before it’s halfway up and disappears inside. A few seconds later a motorcycle roars to life and I have a sudden, and scared concern that we’re going looking for them on a mountain bike. I don’t like motorcycles. It comes from one of those violent deaths I witnessed several decades back.
“Matt and Becky!” I yell into the radio. Static comes back but it is competing all of a sudden with the roaring engine as Aileen comes barreling out of the garage. I’m crouched down, not looking her way as I try to cover one ear and listen for any voice with the other. Between the static and the motorcycle all I get is the word “coordinates.” I stand and turn around. It isn’t a motorcycle. It’s an ATV; an oversized, built for two ATV. “What’s that?” I’m a little less uncomfortable with it than a motorcycle if for no other reason than it has something more than a non-existent wheel base. It also has a roll bar.
“It’s a Rhino. Get in. Do you know where they are yet?”
“Yes,” I say as I open the door of what looks to be an after-market cage built around the vehicle’s frame, and fold myself into the little vehicle. “Or at least I think I know where they are.” I key the radio again. “We’re coming. We’re coming.”
“How’s that?” she asks.
“He said something about coordinates. I also heard the word, scat.”
“Yeah. Me too. What did that mean?”
“Before Brian and I left, Matt told his dad that he had found grizzly scat. He sent the coordinates so Brian could call it in to somewhere. He was probably trying to say that that’s where they are, or they’re near there.”
“Let me see.” She grabs the device from me and starts punching buttons. “Hmmm. This is probably it here.” She does something else and then a map shows up. “Yeah. Has to be. It’s right at nine tenths of a mile and we’re pointed directly at it. I hope we can get to them in this. It’s four and a half foot wide so let's keep our fingers crossed. If they’re close to the trail it’ll be no problem.” She hands it back to me. “Watch it and let me know as we get close, or if I get off track.” She points to the center of the display. “This is where we are. This is where they are. That pointer should be pointed in the general direction all the time. If it looks like we’re getting sidetracked, let me know.”
“Got it,” I say, and then like a bullet, we’re into the woods.
I don’t know how I’m supposed to hold on to the radio and keep from bouncing into her lap at the same time, or keep from slamming my head against the roll bar. I hold onto a conveniently provided suicide handle with a death grip and watch the readout. I don’t know how fast we’re going but suddenly we’re down to six tenths of a mile. I’m glad for the cage because I’m sure the branches from several trees would have already dragged me out by now. We crest a rise and as all four wheels leave the ground I have to fight to keep my eyes open. There’s no time for us to get settled to the ground before a sudden turn in the trail.”
“Oh Shit!” Aileen says. “You should have buckled.”
“There’s buckles?” and then everything is upside down, right side up and then sideways. When the world stops rotating we are on our side—my door up, her door down. She is lying still underneath me.
Chapter 26
Reba
For some reason I can’t stay mad at Matt very long. But my anger doesn’t lessen. It shifts, instead, to Sam and my dad. I wish I hadn’t read the journal, or I wish I hadn’t read it now. I wish I hadn’t seen Sam’s thoughts. This was not the time to find this all out. To take my mind away from it, I force myself to look at Matt, to scan for his aura, but the light in here is not good enough. Inste
ad, I shift my attention to opening my mind to his mind, even though earlier attempts had proven only that he is not at all as transparent as Sam. It is the same now but I continue to relax my mind anyway, if for no other reason than that there is nothing else to do. I don’t want to think anymore about my dad and Sam, nor the sabre-toothed cats patiently waiting outside for us. I close my eyes, rest my head on my arms and watch the dark swirl in my inner vision.
Suddenly there are running feet. I’m so shocked by it that I open my eyes and sit up. At first I doubt myself, assuming that I had fallen asleep and began dreaming. Matt is lying on his back using his pack for a pillow. His hat is over his face. Did the running feet come from his mind? I shift to the yoga position, rest my hands on my knees and close my eyes once more, this time consciously allowing my mind to drift while remaining aware of the dead silence of our tomb. At first there is nothing but I wait patiently, reaching, until . . .
Feet again. Two pair standing next to each other; facing in opposite directions. A giggle—stifled. Two more feet run into view; a tad smaller; beat-up running shoes; laces half undone on one. Suddenly all three sets of feet turn to face in the same direction. A fourth set runs up, same size as the third set, same shoes in the same tattered condition, both laces untied and trailing along. They all move away quickly, and then it is dark, but that awareness is sudden, like a switch was turned off. It isn’t pitch black dark. There is a moonscape; eerie and quiet; a tad chill; the view is the same. Moon shadows create shapes that may or may not have been there before, may or may not be animate, may or may not be dangerous animals who know I am here and are waiting for me to come out. I want to come out but I am afraid. I am very afraid and wish they would come back and find me. They would be mad but I would take my punishment like a man, and I would promise never to do it again. It seemed like fun, but it ain’t fun no more.
I watch the dark, scary shapes; decide that they are not dangerous animals. I must crawl out and yell for help. They must still be looking for me. They wouldn’t go away and give up, would they? Karl and Kevin say I’m a pain in their ass. They won’t come back and look for me. They won’t care. Mom will care. She’ll come back and make Dad come back, and Dad will bring his deputies. He’ll be very-very mad.
Feet! Animal feet and legs so close I can’t see the rest. Big as a big dog, but not a dog. Not a wolf. Cat paws! Huge cat paws! A cougar or a mountain lion. Is he too big to get me where I hide? Can he smell me, or hear me breathe? Don’t cry! Don’t . . . don’t . . . don’t cry. I can’t help it. I can’t stop it. I can’t breathe . . . have to breathe.
He hears me!
He sees me!
A paw reaches in; a claw on my jacket! I try to pull away, but he is stronger. I brace my feet against the rock and then hear my jacket tears as I jerk away from him and scramble back to the farthest corner. His claws cannot reach me. He tries to squeeze his body in but he is too big, twice as big as me. I am shaking and crying and I want my mama. “Mama!” I can barely see his paw but I can feel the movement of air as his claws swish by only inches from my face.
“Mama!”
Tears are coming out of my eyes and stuff is coming from my nose and I can feel that I have peed because it is warm and wet and I don’t remember peeing and I try hard to breathe and not cry but I have lost all control of myself.
“Mama!”
Then, in a blink, it is gone. There is nothing. I relax my mind a little more and extend my reach. It is so gone it is like there never was anything, but unlike a dream that fades, this has not faded from my memory.
“What are you doing?”
I open my eyes. Matt is standing, looking down at me. “What do you mean, what am I doing?”
“Nothing,” he says, and walks to the entrance.
Did he know I was there? Could he feel me inside his mind? Is that where I was or were his thoughts drifting to me? How old was he when he played the hide-from-his-parents game? “No, really. What did you mean by that?” I make my voice light and friendly. I don’t want him thinking I’m still angry. “I’m really just curious.”
He turns around. “I don’t know what I meant. I just felt funny and . . .I don’t know. I think I’m just being weird.”
He did feel me. “Are they still out there?”
“Just the one.”
“Becky . . . Matt,” the radio squawks. Our names are barely understandable over the static.
Matt rushes to where he lay the radio down. “Yeah! This is Matt.” He waits, but there is no response. “Zach. This is Matt!” He walks up to the entrance and we hear, “Matt! This is Sam! Pick up!”
Matt adjusts something on the radio and says, “We are trapped in a cave-like area in some rocks. We are safe but there are four sabre-toothed cats outside.”
All we hear is, “. . . again.” Matt tries once more and we hear, “Where are you?” plain as day.
“We’re eight tenths of a mile up the trail. I sent Dad the coordinates of a grizzly scat. We are in the rocks just before that.” We hear nothing. Matt adds, “Can’t get good reception because of the rocks. I can’t see the sky to get satellite lock-on for coordinates. I say again; there are four sabre-toothed cats around us. Very dangerous. If you come, use your Rhino.”
“. . . can’t hear . . .”
“We need help. We are trapped by four sabre-toothed cats. Come in the Rhino.”
I take the radio from Matt. Into it I say, “Dad. We’re okay. We’re trapped by sabre-toothed cats.”
Matt snaps the radio back and gets as far out the entrance as he dares. “We’re trapped by four sabre-toothed cats in some rocks just off the trail,” he tries telling them again, “two tenths of a mile southeast of the grizzly scat. I sent the coordinates to Dad. We’re a little more than three-quarters of a mile from the house. I have no clear sky to give you new coordinates or accurate distances.” He listens for a bit and then comes back in. “They just can’t hear me. These rocks are blocking everything.” There is suddenly static on the radio and he rushes to the entrance and listens. He returns and says, “All I could understand was the word, ‘coming.’”
“If we go out back-to-back, maybe we can get where they can hear us better.”
“I don’t like the way the cats can get above us. Being able to see only one means that the others are probably waiting on top of the rocks around us. That really scares me.”
I don’t disagree. He sits down and leans on his knees. I feel a chill and wish I had thrown a windbreaker into my pack. I consider asking if we can cuddle together but I feel dirty and disgusting, embarrassed by the smell of my urine. If he was a gentleman, he’d offer. But I’d have to turn him down. I don’t need him throwing that up in my face again.
“It’s probably best we don’t even look out at them. Maybe after a time they’ll think we’ve gone away, and go away themselves.”
“Then what?” I ask. “If we look out and see nothing are we supposed to assume everything is cool and go skipping down the trail? That’s what they’d want.”
“I know.”
I don’t address my real fear out loud. What’s going to happen to our dads and Sam if they come up here looking for us? What if all they heard was sabre-toothed cats and they have no idea where we are? Even if they got that we’re near the scat coordinates, it’s a ways up the trail. How will they ever find us? And if they do find us, what’s to keep the cats off of them? I shiver.
“We probably shouldn’t talk,” he says. “As long as they can hear us, they know we’re here.”
“Yeah,” I say. “What’s a Rhino?”
“Sam has a two-seater ATV, a Yamaha Rhino. She had a cage built around the roll bar.”
“Oh.” My fear for our fathers lessens some, but I still feel a chill. We sit in silence for a long time it seems, though it’s probably no more than ten minutes.
“Are you cold?” he asks me.
“A little,” I say.
“We don’t have to sit apart you know. We can get tog
ether and share our body heat. We’ll both be warmer and it doesn’t have to mean anything.”
“I’m okay.”
“Okay.”
Shit to hell! I pull my knees in even tighter. Shit all the way to hell and back.
Chapter 27
Zach
I’m thinking she’s unconscious, or worse. “You okay?” Her voice startles me.
“I think so. You?”
“Except for a couple of bumps on my head, your elbow in my sternum and the rest of you on top of me, I’m just peachy.” She shifts and pushes against me. “And . . .I can’t . . . breathe.” I grab something and move my weight. “That’s better. Now, can you finish getting off of me and climb out of this thing?”
I analyze our mini environment for a few seconds and then begin untangling myself enough that I can push against the door. I hurt in several places but as far as I can tell I’m not going to require splints or emergency lifesaving procedures. The urgency of our mission returns to me and I push myself up.
“Can you place your hand somewhere else?” Aileen demands.
“Sorry.”
“I swear the worst bruise I’m going to have from this is your hand print on my breast.”
“Sorry!” I say again. “I can’t get the door open.” I’ve never thought of myself as claustrophobic, but there’s a panic . . . a panic . . . I bang against the door. “We’re trapped!”
“Calm down,” she says to me.
“But we’re trapped!” I scramble about and get my shoulder against the door and begin pushing. “Stop! Stop!” Aileen is screaming. I wish she wouldn’t because it distracts my trying to get the door open. I push harder and she screams some more and then suddenly there is a flaring pain in my groin, like someone kicked me in the balls. Everything in my vision turns red and I collapse back into a heap.
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