Cut and Died

by Jeff Shelby

  A shipping container that smelled an awful lot like cooked bacon.

  FORTY TWO

  I sat there for a moment, wondering what to do.

  Mostly because I had no idea what I’d just stumbled upon.

  Was it a secret hideout? Or simply an abandoned shipping container, shoved deep into the woods?

  But that didn’t make sense. It was buried, the top of the container nearly level with the ground. Someone had hidden it on purpose.

  But why?

  I put my hands on the ground, the snow instantly freezing my fingers, and pushed myself up and into a standing position. My boots were soundless, the snow and pine needles muffling any noise they might have made.

  I looked around, trying to figure out where exactly I was. Maybe I’d stepped onto someone’s property. Maybe this was a cellar, a storage unit of sorts. Or a bomb shelter, left over from the past. But all I could see were trees, tall spindly pines and fir trees that resembled soldiers standing guard, holding court with saplings and thick-trunked deciduous trees. Some leaned drunkenly against the other, fallen comrades holding each other up, and some lay sprawled on the forest floor, their bark disintegrating, their branches broken off and scattered next to them.

  There were no buildings, no rooftops—nothing to indicate I was anywhere other than the middle of the wilderness.

  I took a deep breath and the pungent aroma reminded me what else was weird about this situation. The bacon.

  Why was I smelling bacon? And why did it seem as though it was coming from inside the buried shipping container?

  I tiptoed away from my current position, wincing as my sore leg muscles protested, and let my eyes settle on and follow the outline of the container. It was large, and I immediately thought it might be one of those storage units people have dropped off at their houses during moves. I’d contemplated using one for my move to Latney but had ultimately decided on a traditional mover. I didn’t want to be responsible for loading and unloading furniture and boxes; I might only be in my forties, but I was sure it would have taken weeks if not months to recover from that kind of activity.

  I walked a few steps and toed at the snow, kicking aside the white stuff to reveal more of the container. This particular patch of snow looked like it had been disturbed recently. It was slightly more compacted, almost like clumps instead of the drifts of snow in the rest of the woods.

  I pushed more away, using my boot like a broom. My foot encountered something protruding from the container and I bent down to investigate.

  It was a latch, the kind that allowed for a lock to be attached to it. There was no lock but the latch had been closed.

  From the outside.

  I frowned.

  If the latch had been closed from the outside, why did it seem—okay, smell—like someone was inside the container?

  I took a deep breath and glanced around one more time.

  I knew what the right thing to do was.

  The right thing to do would be to move away from the container, preferably a good distance, and call Mack. Not because he was a private investigator and would magically know what to do, but because he was the logical choice. He was in the woods with me, somewhere. He had the best chance of finding me, and finding me quickly.

  But I didn’t reach for my phone. I just stood there, paralyzed, staring at the buried metal box. The wind rustled through the trees and the soft, low call of an owl startled me, reminding me I wasn’t alone.

  I needed to make a decision: either call Mack and tell him what I’d found or open the container on my own and see what was inside.

  I extended my hand and my fingers closed on the latch. The cold metal stung my fingers and I fumbled with it, finally managing to slide it up and over the metal loop. I brushed at the remaining snow and debris so that the door was visible.

  Someone had retrofitted the door. I was a little familiar with storage units and I knew that most utilized a sliding door, similar to what might be on a garage. This unit had a smaller entry, almost like a hatch on a submarine. The metal used to create this wall of the unit was clearly from another source and had been hastily welded to the existing unit.

  None of that mattered, though.

  What mattered was I’d found the door and undone the latch and my hand was poised and ready to open it.

  I breathed in deeply again, exhaling through my nostrils, and flexed my fingers on the door handle.

  What was the worst that could happen?

  That was a dumb question.

  A giant cougar could've leapt out at me.

  Some sort of toxic gas could've leaked out.

  Some Unabomber-like recluse could've been hiding in there with tools of torture.

  I took another deep breath and focused on the bacon.

  A cougar wouldn't be cooking bacon and if there was a toxic gas, I wouldn't have smelled the bacon.

  Of course, the Unabomber-like recluse very much might eat bacon every morning before wreaking havoc on the world.

  But I figured the odds were in my favor.

  I took one more lungful of cold air and pulled on the door handle.

  No cougars.

  No toxic fumes.

  No Unabomber-like recluses.

  Just Tim McIntire, cooking a little bacon.

  FORTY THREE

  Tim looked at me in surprise.

  I shrank back from the opening.

  “Rainy?” His face screwed up in confusion. “That is your name, right?”

  I nodded. My head was the only thing capable of moving; everything else felt frozen in place.

  I’d found Tim. Hiding out in some kind of semi-underground shelter.

  Cooking bacon.

  I somehow managed to find my voice. “What are you doing?”

  “Cooking lunch. Or dinner, maybe.” He frowned. “I don’t even know what time it is. Anyway, I was hungry.”

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “What?” he asked. “It’s hard to hear you.”

  I leaned closer to the opening. There was some griddle on a rustic wooden table, plugged into what might have been a generator. Pieces of bacon sizzled in the pan, crackling and spitting grease.

  “I asked why you’re here? In this...shelter.”

  “Me?” He stirred the bacon, using tongs to pull out a few cooked pieces. He set these on a plate covered with a cloth towel and the grease immediately soaked through it. “I live here sometimes.” He looked at me. “I think the better question is, what are you doing here?”

  I gulped. This was the second time I’d been asked this question, and I figured the answer I gave to Margaret was good enough to offer to Tim.

  “I was out hiking,” I explained.

  “Hiking?” he repeated. “You like hiking?”

  I nodded and tried to look enthusiastic.

  A broad smile spread over his face. “I love hiking, too!”

  I watched as he fished out more pieces of bacon from the pan. I was completely perplexed. Tim was holed up in an underground shelter, cooking bacon and acting like he didn’t have a care in the world. He was clearly surprised to see me, but I didn’t blame him. I mean, I was hiking around in the woods alone on a cold winter afternoon. But he didn’t seem like he was trying to hide from anyone, and he didn’t appear to be worried or upset that I’d stumbled upon him or his secret hideout.

  He held up the plate. “You want some bacon?”

  I did not want bacon. The hunger I’d felt earlier had disappeared; I was pretty sure nerves had filled up my stomach instead.

  But I did want answers to my questions. I had so many of them.

  “Sure,” I said.

  I lowered myself through the open hatch. There was a wide wooden bench just underneath it and I stepped onto it, grateful for the sturdy footing.

  I straightened and surveyed the room as surreptitiously as I could.

  It was definitely some type of shelter, and a somewhat homey one at that. The walls were unpainted, corru
gated metal, but Tim had thrown a rug down on the floor of the container to soften the industrial feel of the space, a ragged Persian knockoff that, despite the busy pattern, couldn’t hide its innumerable stains. There was a cot in one corner, loaded down with thick woolen blankets and a limp pillow, along with a makeshift table made from pallets, with two folding chairs stacked alongside of it. The rest of the perimeter was lined mostly with shelving. There were meals, packets of water and batteries, flashlights, boxes of bullets.

  “Looks like you’ve got a great bunker here,” I said to Tim, who was still standing next to the griddle. “Where does the smoke go? From the bacon?” Despite the fact that it reeked of bacon, the air was surprisingly clear.

  “Oh, I have a vent right here,” he said, toeing a steel pipe near his feet. “Sucks the smoke out.”

  “I didn’t see anything outside.”

  He smiled. “I know. The pipe is buried, comes out about twenty feet from here. Hopefully far enough away that it isn’t too obvious this place is here.”

  “Wow. You’ve really thought of everything.”

  He picked up a piece of bacon and bit into it. “Nah, not really. This place is actually crap.” He held out the plate. “Want a piece?”

  I took the smallest piece I saw. “It is?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I found this abandoned shipping container and thought it would make a good shelter. So I brought it out here and dug a hole—took me about three months, pretty much nonstop digging.”

  I couldn’t think of much that sounded worse than digging a hole for three months straight. And I wondered just what he meant by “finding” an abandoned shipping container. He’d considered Mack’s car abandoned and had helped himself to it; maybe he’d done the same thing with the container we were currently standing in.

  “So what exactly is wrong with it?” I asked. “The shelter, I mean.”

  Tim sighed. “What isn’t? Turns out shipping containers make horrible shelters. You can’t really bury them too deep because they aren’t meant to withstand much pressure, both on the top and on the sides. Dirt is heavy, you know? So when it rains and that dirt turns to even heavier mud, it creates even more pressure.” He pointed at the roof. “See?”

  I looked up. It was indeed beginning to sag. “Couldn’t you reinforce it?”

  “Sure,” Tim said, grabbing another piece of bacon. “Sure you don’t want some?”

  I shook my head.

  “Yeah, I could reinforce it,” he continued. “But I don’t really see the point.”

  “You don’t?”

  He reached for a canteen that was sitting next to the griddle and took a sip. “There’s another major issue with this as a shelter.”

  I looked around. I could think of several. No bathroom, no heat, no running water. “What’s that?” I asked.

  He pointed at the makeshift hatch above us. “Only one entrance.”

  I must have looked puzzled because he chuckled.

  “If there’s only one way in, there’s only one way out.” He paused, looking at me. “Which means if someone is outside—an enemy—they have complete and total control.”

  I suddenly remembered the latch, and the position it had been in. Someone had closed it from the outside.

  “The latch was closed,” I said slowly, trying to think it through.

  It was Tim’s turn to look puzzled. “What?”

  “The latch,” I explained. “On the outside. The door was latched closed.”

  He scratched his head. “Well, how did that happen?”

  I had no idea. But it was beginning to look like someone had locked Tim inside of his shelter. On purpose.

  “Did anyone know you were coming out here? To your shelter?” I asked.

  Tim shook his head. “I don’t think so.” He bit his lip. “I...I don’t have very many friends.”

  James had mentioned this.

  “Can I ask you a question?” I said impulsively.

  His hand was extended, going for his third piece of bacon, and he nodded.

  I loosened the scarf looped around my neck. It was a little warm in there, but I was sure that my racing heart also played a role in how overheated I was feeling. “Did you know Miranda? The woman in the trunk?”

  Tim froze, his hand midway to the plate, and I froze, too.

  He expelled a breath and his eyes narrowed as he stared at me, his expression unreadable. “Yeah.”

  My pulse quickened and a shiver ran down my spine.

  Because all of a sudden, the shelter I was standing in didn’t feel homey at all.

  It felt suffocating, like I was in a trap I couldn’t get out of.

  And Tim, the main suspect in Miranda’s death, was in there with me.

  FORTY FOUR

  It was too late to turn back, and too late to take back the question I’d just asked.

  It was out there.

  I swallowed against the lump of fear wedged in my throat. “Was she your girlfriend?”

  Tim’s expression changed and he looked to the ground, his shoulders slumping. “Was. We broke up a while ago.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, as gently as I could. I wanted to sound sympathetic, mostly so he wouldn’t decide to murder me with one of the many guns or knives sitting on the shelves behind him.

  “Me, too.” Tim’s voice was small. “We had a good thing going. At least I thought we did.”

  He didn’t sound like he was about to fly into a murderous rage so I forged ahead. “If you don’t mind my asking, what happened?”

  Tim was quiet for a minute. “She didn’t like all of this,” he said.

  “This?”

  He nodded. “The prepping stuff. She thought it was a waste of time. A waste of energy. She was working in Winslow, the print shop over behind the school. Had her apartment, wanted me to move in with her and get a job, too.”

  It didn’t sound like a terrible plan to me, but I just nodded and listened. And kept my eyes on Tim’s hands and the weapons behind him.

  “She just didn’t understand that this stuff is important to me.” His voice became more animated. “We need to be prepared, man.”

  “For what?”

  His eyes widened. “For everything. Economic collapse, environmental disaster, war.”

  It sounded like a fearful way to live one’s life. It also sounded like my own daughter, Laura, could easily get sucked into that way of thinking. I made a mental note to discreetly poke around and see if she’d started making any odd plans of her own.

  “I just couldn’t do it,” he said, shaking his head. “I couldn’t give it up, not while living in such uncertain times.”

  I didn’t think there was a single moment in history—in anyone’s life—that didn’t have some uncertainty in it. That was the nature of living, of fate, of choices. It didn’t mean we all had to have secret shelters and stockpiles of food and ammunition. We just needed to work to make things better.

  I stopped philosophizing in my head and refocused. “So you broke up.”

  He nodded. “It was a mutual decision.”

  I raised my eyebrows. This piece of information surprised me. I’d assumed Miranda had been the one doing the breaking up, especially since she had apparently issued an ultimatum to him.

  My heart was still pounding but I didn’t feel nearly as skittish as I had just a moment earlier. Mostly because Tim was still grazing the plate of bacon, seemingly unconcerned about our conversation.

  “Can I ask you another question?” I said.

  He chewed and nodded.

  “Did you have anything to do with Miranda’s death?”

  His eyes widened and he dropped the piece of bacon to the floor. “What?”

  I could tell the question horrified him, and I didn’t know whether it was because he was offended I’d asked or surprised that I’d made an accurate connection.

  “I just...” I began, but he cut me off, shaking his head.

  “No. Absolutely not. I had nothing to do wit
h what happened to Miranda. I loved her!” He made a noise, something between a cough and a sigh. “We had started talking again recently. I thought...I thought we might have a shot at working things out.”

  I didn’t know Tim at all, but I knew enough to recognize the conviction in his voice and his expression. I was inclined to believe him.

  I thought briefly about Mack’s interaction with Miranda. She’d slept with him, which sort of indicated to me that she hadn’t been too serious about reconciling with Tim. But what did I know? There were just as many women as men who were fine with one-night stands. Maybe Miranda had just been looking for companionship, if only for one night. It didn’t negate the idea that she might be considering getting back together with Tim.

  “Why would you think that?” he asked, his eyes still wide. “That I would...hurt her?”

  I stared down at my boots. “You took Mack’s car. Miranda’s body was found inside of it. And you knew her...”

  I glanced up and was surprised to see tears flooding his eyes.

  “I didn’t do anything to her, I swear,” he said, his voice cracking. “I...I loved her.”

  It was the second time he’d made this proclamation.

  “Do you have any idea what might have happened to her?” I asked carefully. “Since you knew her well, I mean.”

  If he heard my question, he didn’t respond. His gaze was fixed on me, his eyes still wide and flush with tears. I could see his hands were shaking.

  “Wait,” he said slowly. “Am I...” He swallowed. “Am I a suspect? In her death?”

  I hesitated, then nodded. Sheriff Lewis might not consider him one yet, despite the fact we’d brought him some circumstantial evidence linking Tim to Miranda, but that didn’t mean much. Mack and I had both suspected Tim might be involved, and I trusted our investigative skills more than the sheriff’s.

  Except apparently we had both been wrong about Tim.

  “Oh my god,” he moaned, closing his eyes. “How? I didn’t do anything! All I did was find the car and bring it back to my camper. That’s it. Why would anyone think I killed Miranda?

  I didn’t know, but that wasn’t the question I was focusing on.