The Return

by Bentley Little

  Between two of the teepees he saw the tall pole and sign for Jack in the Box sink quickly out of sight, as though being sucked into a vacuum. Above that section of town, the blue sky was losing color and turning a burnt-charcoal gray.

  It's the end of the world, he thought.

  And as he watched a cackling old woman skinning a Dalmatian puppy in the back of a pickup truck speeding by on the nonexistent road, he thought maybe that was for the best.

  Fifteen

  1

  They should've brought Vince's pickup truck. How could they be so stupid? They knew before starting this trip that they were supposed to bring back the mummy, so why hadn't they planned things out ahead of time and driven a vehicle that could actually carry it?

  Glen looked from the open door of the shed to the open car trunk, then back to the shed and to the open back door of the car. There was no way it would fit in the trunk. They were going to have to wedge it into the backseat. It was stiff and straight, and they couldn't bend it, obviously. That meant its afro-haired head would either be leaning against the backseat window behind Melanie or himself.

  He didn't want that mummy in the car with them. Especially not for the three-hour trip back to Scottsdale. The smell alone was enough to make him puke.

  Taking out the tape measure Huffman had loaned them, he measured the trunk front-to-back and catty-corner. No way. The mummy was a foot too long, even with the hair flattened down. He measured the backseat. Still not enough room, unless they were able to manuever the mummy so that it was positioned on its side, with its feet on the floor in the corner next to the door and its head bumping the ceiling above the opposite door--an arrangement he did not think would work.

  The roof. Tying it to the roof was the best option, and though the car had no rack, they could wrap the mummy back up in the plastic, put it up top, and then tie it through the window, running the rope through the inside of the car. He could only do that in the backseat, though. If he did it in the front, the doors would be roped shut and they wouldn't be able to get in. He'd have to angle all the ropes so that they funnelled through the rear windows. It could work, though. And at least they wouldn't be stuck in the car with that thing.

  "So what's the plan?" Melanie said. "Or do we have one?"

  "We'll tie it to the roof."

  She let out an audible exhalation. "Thank God. I thought I was going to have to sit next to it. I figured you'd lean the passenger seat all the way back, lay it in there and have me sit in the backseat next to it. I was going to suggest we switch. I'd drive and you sit in the back."

  He hadn't even thought of that.

  "Let's go in there," Melanie said. "Let's get it."

  They were afraid to touch the mummy. Huffman had given them disposable gloves, but a thin layer of latex between their hands and the monster did not seem sufficient protection. Huffman himself refused to offer any assistance. He might be able to find someone later in the day, he said, but they didn't want to wait that long. They needed to get out of here and back so that the mummy could be studied.

  So, as much as they hated the idea, they decided to do it themselves. Gloves on, wearing handkerchiefs tied around their noses and mouths like bandits, they proceeded to rewrap the preserved corpse. Glen first held up the head and shoulders while Melanie slid the recovered tarp underneath. Then he lifted up the feet and buttocks while she slid it under the rest of the body. They sealed up the plastic, fastened it with duct tape, and then tied the whole kit and kaboodle atop the car.

  He still had not told Melanie what he'd seen when they first opened the door of the shed. He wasn't sure why. Too personal, he supposed.

  What he'd seen was his mother. Not the young mother of his dream, but his mother the way she'd looked on her deathbed, pain-stricken face, wrinkled skin drained of all color. He'd pulled open the shed door, and she'd been lying on the board between the sawhorses, head turned toward him, mouth open in agony. He stepped back, blinked, and she was gone. But it had not been a hallucination or a case of mistaken identity. She had been there, in the shed, and for a brief second the shed had even smelled like her room, that pungent scent of medicine and disinfectant that he would never forget.

  What had caused it? Whatever power was at work here, it seemed to be targeting him personally. Melanie had seen nothing but the mummy. He had seen a horrible vision of his mother. Not just seen it, but smelled it, felt it.

  But why?

  He didn't understand.

  And he didn't want to talk to Melanie about it. Not yet.

  They drove back to Scottsdale, Glen setting the cruise control two miles below the speed limit. He did not want to get stopped by a cop. They would have one tough time explaining the presence of a mummy to some motorcycle patrolman.

  Early afternoon, they pulled into McCormack's driveway and parked behind the professor's BMW. Leaving the mummy on the roof, they walked up and rang the bell. A moment later, McCormack opened the door. Behind him, Glen saw Alyssa and Vince and Cameron, watching what appeared to be a news program on TV.

  "Well, we're back. We've got our buddy tied up on the roof. It was either that or put him in the backseat, and we didn't want him in the car with us." The solemn look on McCormack's face made him stop. "What is it?" he asked. "What happened?"

  "You didn't hear?"

  Glen looked at Melanie, shook his head. "No. What?"

  "Bower," the professor told them. "It's gone. It's been wiped off the face of the earth."

  Her parents. And her house. And her friends and her coworkers and the school where she worked and the stores where she shopped and . . . everything. All gone. It was impossible for Melanie to get her mind around. She felt numb, hollow. The entire world, Glen included, seemed distant, removed, as though she were viewing it through thick glass. Even the sounds she heard seemed muffled, and it occurred to her that she was in shock.

  Glen was holding her hand, but she barely felt it. "When did this happen?" he asked.

  "No one knows. Today. Maybe yesterday. They just discovered it this morning."

  "This is on the news, right? The national news? NBC, CBS, ABC, CNN? I don't care how small Bower is or how much prejudice there is against the West. There's no way this can be swept under the rug."

  "Oh, it hasn't been. CNN's had on nothing but all day." McCormack picked up the remote control from the table, turned up the volume. "They're doing our work for us. The story's finally getting out."

  A news flash crawled along the bottom of the screen. "The stock market fell a hundred points?" Glen said. "Is that related?"

  "Oh, yes. This is big news. No one's talking about anything else."

  "And they're finally putting the pieces together," Vince said. "The local news footage from Pima House is running nationally, all the networks have correspondents in Cameron's neighborhood, and Dateline, 20/20, and Larry King have all booked some of Dr. McCormack's most esteemed colleagues."

  "Arthur Wessington is bringing along footage shot at the Russell Museum. Stephen Barre will be discussing strange pottery finds with Stone Phillips. They asked me to conduct a Pima House tour for Diane Sawyer," McCormack said modestly, "but I declined."

  Melanie could not believe all that was happening. The mummy was still in plastic on the roof of the car, but what just this morning had seemed like an important piece of the puzzle now seemed superfluous.

  Bower was gone.

  "So our part's over?" Glen asked. "The big guns are on it, the president's assigned the best and the brightest?"

  McCormack looked over at Vince. "We don't think so."

  "Why? What do you mean?"

  "Hang on to your hats," Vince said. And he explained how they'd found a bounty of ancient multicultural artifacts in a train tunnel near the scout ranch. Now they thought that the Mogollon Monster and the creature that had killed off the Anasazi were one and the same. He said he believed that she, Cameron, Glen, McCormack, and himself were all resistant to whatever psychic power was wreaking this havoc.
"I think we've been chosen," he said. "Chosen to fight."

  "Jesus Christ!" Glen said. "Why didn't you tell us this over the phone?"

  "We told you we were going up to the scout ranch--"

  "Yeah, and you told us you came back and we told you we found the mummy and you didn't mention word one. Shit!"

  "Not to hurt your feelings," McCormack said, "but you're not the professional here. You stumbled into this, but it's our work. And for you to suggest that--"

  "Shut up," Cameron said.

  They all turned toward him in surprise.

  The boy sat up straighter on the couch. "Why are you arguing over stupid stuff? We're all in this together. And maybe it wants us to argue with each other. Did you ever think of that? If we're the only ones who can fight it, maybe it wants us to separate."

  "He's right," Glen said instantly. He nodded at Vince. "I'm sorry."

  "It's been a long day for all of us."

  "A long week," Glen said.

  "A long month."

  Melanie was staring at the television, saw a generic map showing where Bower was located in relation to Phoenix and Albuquerque. "I want to see it," she said. "I want to go back there."

  McCormack nodded. "I knew you would. And I do, too. I talked to my friend, Captain Ortiz, from the Scottsdale PD. He's willing to fly us up in a police helicopter."

  Glen frowned. "Those little two-man things?"

  "No. They have access to a big one that can fit up to six people. It's part of a sharing deal between Valley police departments, the DEA, and the INS." He shook his head, waved his hand. "But that doesn't matter. The point is, there's a helicopter we can use. It's late today, but we can go tomorrow morning early."

  "I want to go now!" Melanie demanded.

  "It'll be dark by--"

  "It gets dark at seven-thirty. Right now it's two. A half hour to whatever airport or launch pad this helicopter's on, an hour to Bower, an hour back. That's plenty of time. I want to see it."

  McCormack nodded. "All right. Let me call and see if we can go." He retreated to his study, and the rest of them turned their attention back to the television, which was now showing grainy security-camera footage of a totemic figure rocking back and forth in a museum case.

  "Have they actually shown Bower yet?" Glen asked. "What it looks like now?"

  "They don't have any shots of the town," Vince said. "It's restricted airspace."

  Melanie still felt numb, but things seemed to be coming back into focus.

  Mom, she thought. Daddy.

  Glen was holding her hand tightly, and it was starting to hurt. "Remember what Pace told us when we were looking at that mural back in Chaco Canyon?" he said. "That before everyone disappeared it was like Sodom and Gomorrah? Maybe that's what's happening. Maybe it's like a natural phenomenon, and every time a society gets too debauched, a correction takes place and all that's destroyed."

  "Do you really believe that?" she asked.

  "No."

  "I think it's more likely that you unearthed that skull, and that started the ball rolling. If it had remained in the ground, perhaps none of this would be happening."

  "You really believe that?"

  "Maybe."

  "Me, too."

  "I don't," Vince said.

  They both turned to look at him.

  "That skull was buried for centuries. The Mogollon Monster seems to have gone through dormant periods of inactivity, but he was around during that time, killing, living up by the Rim. Maybe he's the last of his kind and has been in hiding, but he's back at full strength and he's not hiding anymore."

  "Maybe digging up those skulls and things brought him back to full strength," Cameron suggested. "Maybe they're like dilithium crystals, power sources."

  "Dilithium crystals?" Glen asked.

  "Star Trek," Vince explained.

  The professor emerged from the hallway, looking pleased. "The captain said we should meet him at the police department in twenty minutes. That should give us plenty of time. They have a heliport on the roof of the building, and we'll take off from there."

  They could only bring four people, so Cameron remained at the house with Alyssa. Glen backed up his car to let McCormack pull out, then drove into the garage to hide the still-bound mummy so it wouldn't be stolen or vandalized. None of them liked leaving Alyssa and Cameron there with the monster--Melanie had visions of finding the mummy unwrapped and upright, the boy and the woman bowing down before its feet--but it couldn't be helped. They would only be gone for a couple of hours.

  They piled into the BMW, McCormack speeding, weaving in and out of traffic, driving the way she thought guys who owned BMW's usually drove. Captain Ortiz and one of his lieutenants were waiting for them, and on the rooftop heliport the pilot already had the chopper running. They got in, buckled up, and were off, sailing over the eastern subdivisions, over the reservation, over the desert.

  No one spoke. Not that they could have been heard anyway. The noise of the rotors was deafening.

  Melanie tried to concentrate on the view out the window. She did not want to dwell on what had happened to Bower, but there was nothing to do on the ride but think, and she found herself remembering not just the people but the objects that were now lost forever. The photographs. The jewelry. The quilts and china and family heirlooms. She had known her parents would die one day, but she had always expected to have pictures of them, presents from them, the physical items that would enable their memories to live on. Now those were gone, too.

  Close to an hour later, they reached Bower. Or rather the spot where Bower should have been. For when they looked down, it was just . . . not there. They could see Highway 192, but at the point where it entered the town, where the abandoned building that used to be Tom's Diner sat, the asphalt ended. It resumed three miles away, where the town was supposed to end. In between was . . . nothing, blank prairie land. Only by natural landmarks could Melanie tell where things used to be.

  The helicopter flew over the lake, circled back over the town site.

  Around Tom's were trucks and tanks and cars of all sizes, a fleet of federal vehicles all dispatched to find out what had happened to Bower. She could see men in suits and men in fatigues down there, all pointing up at them.

  The pilot was talking into his headset, using his two-way radio to communicate with someone on the ground as he steadied and started lowering the helicopter.

  Melanie looked north, at the small flat-topped rise that she was pretty sure had been her school's football/base-ball/soccer field. She was suddenly afraid for them to land. What if there was another vortex here, something spawned by their excavation or that bone land under Ricky's house and they were sucked into it the second they touched down?

  Ricky, she thought. Jerod.

  They were gone, dead, disappeared.

  The copter continued to descend. She wanted to tell the pilot not to touch down, but before she could shout out her thoughts, a representative from one of the federal agencies below told him the same thing, ordering the helicopter not to land in an amplified voice that easily overcame the din of the copter blades. The same thing must have come through the radio--and with similar force--because the pilot cried out and swept the wire mike and earphones off his head. She saw him mouth the word "fuck," although she could not actually hear it.

  They started up again.

  Thank God, she thought. Looking down, she saw no agents or soldiers or researchers in the area where the town used to be. They were all huddled around the last section of asphalt near the diner.

  Maybe they'd already lost people.

  The pilot was flying them away, returning along the flight path they'd taken to get here. She saw him shout something to Captain Ortiz, who then leaned over and shouted in McCormack's ear. McCormack bent forward. "We're going back!" he yelled into her face, and she could barely hear him over the blades. She nodded, and he passed the news on to Glen.

  Melanie looked out the side window, craning her neck for
a last look at the spot where Bower previously stood. Just west of where she thought their excavation had been was a huge bulge in the earth, a swelling protrusion that sloped sharply up at the center. If she had not been so focused on her missing town, she would have noticed it immediately. It was big from the air, but from the ground it must have looked massive, and she saw full-size junipers and pinon pines on the newly created hillside that had been sloughed off and had fallen over.

  Melanie tapped Glen and Vince on the shoulder. "What is that?" she shouted. Both men shook their heads and shrugged uncertainly. She motioned for McCormack to look out his window. "What do you think it is?" she yelled.

  The professor stared out the window, then leaned forward. He didn't yell, but she could somehow hear him clearly. "I'm no expert," McCormack said, "but I think it's the beginning of a cinder cone. I think it's a volcano."

  2

  Pace thought he'd be able to hitch a ride with someone heading into Albuquerque, but the one car he saw on the road nearly knocked him into the ditch and sped by without stopping. He walked up to the doors of three houses that looked like they had someone home, but no one was there. At the last one, a faded A-frame, what appeared to be a permanent garage sale sat out front in the gravel driveway: junky tools on a leaning TV tray, a couple of grimy car parts on the ground.

  A bicycle.

  He walked over to the bike, looked at it. An old three-speed, it seemed to be in usuable shape, and the cardboard sign draped over the handlebars said $10. He had plenty of money in his wallet, and without any hesitation, he whipped out a ten-dollar bill, dropped it through the home's mail slot, and got on the bike.

  He rode it all the way into Albuquerque.

  In the city, the end had already begun. There were cars abandoned on the streets, and an alarming lack of people on the sidewalks, in the businesses. Many of the stores were closed, and closer to downtown a Burger King was burning--with no firefighters anywhere to be seen. He'd been planning to rent a car and drive back to Chaco, but the Avis franchise he passed had been looted and a trio of peculiar-looking German shepherds guarded the parking lot. He kept riding.