Cass ended up at Sheriff Sam’s office. She didn’t trust him after seeing him in the Shaft the previous night, but she was a long way from stating that there was a town-wide conspiracy going on. Of course that was ridiculous. She was sure the man would have a perfectly good explanation for what he had been doing with Tim and Mr. Chavez half a mile under the Earth on Sunday night.
She found him at his desk watching TV. He gave her a nod.
“Cass. How are you today?”
She plopped down across from him. “I’m not sure. How are you? What have you been up to?”
He gestured to the tube. “Just busy keeping the world safe for democracy.”
“Jill is still missing,” she said flatly.
Sheriff Sam frowned. “Are you sure? Her mother says she came home last night.”
“I don’t care what her mother says, Jill is still missing. She didn’t come home last night.”
“How can you be sure?”
Cass paused. “I can’t be absolutely sure but Mrs. Leper is talking like a loon. Nothing she says makes any sense.”
Sheriff Sam reached for his yellow legal pad. “I’ll give her another call, swing by there if you like.”
“Please.” Cass paused. “Have you spoken to Tim?”
“Yes. He said he didn’t know where Jill was.”
“He’s home now I take it? He’s not at the hospital?”
“When I spoke to him he was at home.”
Cass snorted. “But isn’t that weird? Two days ago he almost died. He shouldn’t be home yet.”
“You got me there, I’m not a doctor.”
“Did you ask him about the Shaft?”
“Yes. He told me what you guys did down there. He even took me down, along with Mr. Chavez, to show me around.”
Cass felt relief. But then she remembered that she had felt the same when she had first spoken to Mrs. Leper. She kept her face impassive.
“What did you guys do down there?” she asked.
Sam shrugged. “Nothing much. I was curious to see the place. I never really suspected Tim of doing any wrong. Hell, I’ve know him all his life. He does too many drugs, but basically he’s a good kid.”
Cass hesitated. “Did you do anything down there at all?”
“Well, Tim wanted a sample of the oil down there. I think he believes it’s going to make him rich. But I reminded him that the government owns the place.” He paused. “Did you call that government scientist?”
“No.”
“Do you still have his card?”
“Yes.” She had it in her pocket.
“I’d like it back if possible. I want to talk to that man.”
”OK.”
“Do you have it on you?”
“No. What do you want to talk to the man about?”
“Just some of the things you and I discussed. Could you bring his card this afternoon to the assembly?”
“OK.” She stared at the floor. He was studying her, and she didn’t know why. It was possible he knew she was lying. “What’s this assembly about anyway?”
“Many things. It’s about the future of this city, if you like. You know it’s at two o’clock in the gym?”
“Yes.” She raised her eyes. “Why didn’t I know about this assembly earlier?”
“It hasn’t been in the works long.”
“Are we meeting to vote on town policy and stuff like that?”
“That’s my understanding.”
“So you’re not positive what it’s about?”
“No.”
“Who told you about it?”
“The mayor.”
“When?”
“This morning.”
Cass shook her head. “But that’s strange, don’t you think? This thing couldn’t have had advance planning.”
Sheriff Sam glanced at the tube. The Sci-Fi Channel—a robot was carrying a beautiful blond girl to her death in a volcano. Sam had the volume off.
“I think it’s the mayor’s brainstorm,” Sam said. “You know how he gets an idea and has to share it with everyone.”
“No. I didn’t know that about him.”
He gave her a glance. “Going to be there?”
She stood. “Sure.”
“You won’t forget that card, will you?”
She turned toward the door. “I will definitely bring it with me.”
An hour later Cass was sitting in the local diner, having apple pie and vanilla ice cream chased by a Coke. Her pie was warm; her ice cream a puddle. The ice in the Coke tasted good. Chet was bustling around trying to get ready for the lunch crowd. He thought his regular patrons would be in early because of the assembly. He was looking forward to it, he said and spoke about it with enthusiasm even though he seemed to have no idea what it was about. He did want to know if she was going, everyone wanted to know.
Cass called Jill’s house again.
There was no answer.
She called Mr. Felix. Nothing.
Maybe Jill would be at the assembly.
Cass motioned for the check and got up and left the diner.
As she had the day before she found herself on the dirt road that led to the Shaft. There were fresh sets of car tracks all over, but she didn’t see any cars. Where she had noticed the path cut through the tumbleweed, she parked, got out, and checked out the tracks once more. They were from Fred’s car, no question in her mind. But unlike yesterday, she decided to follow them to see where they led. She did so on foot because she didn’t want to scratch up her car the way Fred’s had been. If only she had brought an extra Coke or bottle of water—the sun was as hot as the day before, worse even, the temperature had to be over a hundred. L.A. was warm, she knew, but it would be nothing like this hellhole. She wondered if they could afford an apartment close to the ocean. Walking across the desert in her shorts, she got her bare legs repeatedly scratched by the briars and shrubs. She was thirsty after only ten minutes of exercise.
Practically dying of thirst, she came to a place where the mangled tumbleweed stopped, and sank to her knees to study the area. From the looks of things it appeared that Fred’s car had stopped and then backed up. Cass spotted footprints as well.
A man’s prints.
She followed them to a six-foot-long mound of dirt.
“Christ,” she whispered.
She didn’t want to dig up what had obviously been buried there. The idea held absolutely no appeal for her. Especially since she could detect an ever-so-slight odor of decay being emitted from the pile of dirt. Like the thing that had been buried there had once been alive. Had once walked around, smiling through the good times and crying over the bad ones. Yeah, she told herself, this was not just a hole in the desert that kids had dug for their innocent pleasure. This was a grave, somebody’s grave.
Cass fell to her knees and began to scoop up the dirt with her hands. She didn’t know when she started crying; it might have been close to the start. The grave was obviously shallow, the stench of decay rose more sharply with each inch of soil she pushed aside. Her tears just overtook her, turning soon to gut-wracking sobs. She knew there couldn’t be a happy story at the bottom of any grave. Especially when her best friend had been missing for two days and her best friend’s boyfriend was acting as if one of the Pod People had visited him in the night and taken over his body when no one was watching. But that wasn’t exactly true because his transformation began after he had fallen into the black pool beneath the Earth and there had been three witnesses present. Only none of them had seen what was in that mysterious gook. None of them had understood that it had the power to organize an entire-town assembly. Yeah, the whole goddamn town was infected with something weird.
Cass saw a brown finger.
It lay there under the dirt.
A cheap emerald ring on a dirty finger.
The worms were already busy with the flesh.
Tim had bought Jill the same ring for her birthday last year.
Cass turned away an
d vomited. Her pie and ice cream came up, but no blood. She didn’t have Tim’s disease, not yet. Yet she threw up more than food or blood could ever signify. Because right then, under the boiling sun and beside the body of her best friend, Cass felt her soul split open as she glimpsed the chasm that opened beneath it. It was an instant of clear cognition, and yet later she was never sure what she had seen. But for that instant she understood her recent nightmares, as well as the nightmares of all humanity from the beginning of time. What yawned beneath her individual soul was an abyss of indifference so vast that it almost engulfed and extinguished her. Yet this void was not empty. The cold will that reached out from its depths was living, a thing that could never die. The immortal demon, as black as space. Cass saw then that humanity—its dreams, its love, its hope, its future—was intrinsically cursed. Even as her best friend had been cursed to die at the hands of a lover. Goodness and love were not enough when the transformation arrived. The Grim Reaper was coming.
And she was hungry.
13
Back at Fred’s trailer, Cass became hysterical. It was not in her nature to lose it, but circumstances had not been kind. Fred was alone and packing boxes. He had to grab Cass to keep her from falling as she came in sobbing.
“What is it?” he demanded as he held her. “Tell me, goddamnit!”
But she couldn’t get the words out for several minutes. The tears and trembling would not stop. Somewhere in the midst of her breakdown Fred began to stroke her hair and finally Cass felt herself calming down. Yet when she finally did speak the lump in her throat was hard as stone.
“Jill’s dead,” she whispered. “I found her body in the desert.”
Fred let go of her and backed off a step.
“What?”
She nodded weakly. “Somebody buried her in a shallow grave off the dirt road that leads to the Shaft. I think she’s been there at least two days.”
Fred shook his head. “No. You spoke to her mother. She said she saw Jill this morning.”
Cass sagged down into a chair. “Her mother was lying. I saw the body.”
Fred was upset, angry. “Now, Cass, you’ve been under a lot of stress. You left your father’s house. We’re trying to move to L.A. That’s enough stress for anyone. Maybe you just thought—”
“I saw her body!” Cass screamed. “Don’t you understand that I couldn’t have imagined it? It’s out there! It’s rotting in the sun!” She balled up in pain. “Oh God.”
Fred must have come over to her because she became aware that he was patting her back and saying soothing things. For a moment he seemed to be speaking gibberish. She shook his hand off, sat up straight, and gave him a hard look.
“I’m not crazy,” she said flatly. “Don’t dare say it, don’t even think it.”
Fred sat down across from her. He’d lost his color and looked like the one under stress. Yet he tried to sound reasonable, which had always been his strength.
“Why would anyone want to kill her?” he asked.
Cass sighed. “It’s the Pod People Syndrome—they want our bodies.”
“The what?”
She kept right on sighing. “It’s Tim. It’s the sheriff. It’s the mayor. The whole town is infected. Did you know Madison is having a major assembly this afternoon at two? Everyone is supposed to be there. There are a thousand people out there who will happily remind you that you should attend the assembly.”
“What assembly? What’s it for?”
Cass gave a fey laugh. “I don’t know. No one really knows. Yet everyone will talk about how exciting it is. Then they ask you three or four times if you are totally sure you’re going.”
“Cass, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She chuckled ironically. “Don’t feel bad, if you did understand I’d be worried about you, too.” She lost her smile. “Where’s Mary?”
“She went out for a walk.”
“Another walk? Where?”
“I don’t know; she didn’t tell me.”
“But why did you let her go without knowing where she was going? You’re supposed to be keeping an eye on her.”
Fred moaned. “Let’s not get into that again. It’s hard to keep a girl that age cooped up in a trailer all day. I saw nothing wrong with her getting a little exercise before we hit the road.”
Cass stood and paced. “One of us has to look for her in a minute. But first we have to get a grasp on what we’re dealing with here. Killing Jill was not an isolated murder. Tim has allies everywhere, and he keeps going back to the Shaft. That means that he may be taking something from that place and giving it to people so that they change and think like he does. Does that make sense?”
Fred hesitated. “Can I be honest?”
Cass stopped. “No. I know what you’re going to say. But you haven’t been in town today. You haven’t talked to the weirdoes I did. You didn’t see Jill’s body with your own eyes. But everything I say is true. Why just a couple of hours ago Mary told us how the whole town was up wandering around all night. I think she was right, and I think some kind of chain reaction worked on the people in town last night while we slept. Tim brought his crap up from the Shaft with the help of a couple of friends and they infected the whole city.”
“Infected them with what?”
“With whatever is in that accursed place! With whatever drove those miners mad years ago! Fred, this is not paranoia speaking. There are facts to back up what I’m saying. You held one of them in your hand last night. That crow bar had blood on it—Jill’s blood.”
Fred paused. “Could you tell how she died?”
Cass lowered her head. “I didn’t examine her body. I … I couldn’t.”
“Did you leave it out there?”
“Yes. It was hard to do, but I did.”
Fred nodded. “I understand. We can go get her now if you want.”
“No. There are more pressing matters.” She felt in her back pocket for the card as she glanced out the dusty window. As far as she could see there didn’t seem to be an overt amount of activity going on in town, but she could get glimpses of it from this far out. Mary was nowhere in sight. She added, “I need to call someone important.”
“Who?”
She started to tell him but froze. She wasn’t sure why.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said finally. “It’s just someone who might be able to help. While I’m doing that, could you go out and find Mary? Bring her back here right away?”
Fred stood and shrugged helplessly. “I don’t understand everything you’re saying, Cass. You need to explain more. I believe that Jill is dead, but I’m not ready to buy into the idea that the whole town has flipped.”
“I’ll explain more later. Right now I just need you to find my sister.” She paused. “Can you do that for me? Please?”
“All right.” He stepped toward the door but stopped. “Then we’re getting out of this place?”
She nodded. “Yeah. We’re getting out of here. That’s for sure.”
The moment Fred had driven away Cass sat with the card—John Fiese, Applied Nuclear Physics, “Secret Military Government Guy”—and dialed the 310 number. She imagined that she’d have to go through several layers of secretarial rejection to get to the man, but the voice that answered sounded intelligent and authoritative. Immediately Cass knew she had Professor Fiese on the line.
“Hello,” he said. “Who is this?”
“Cass Strobe. I live in Madison, Nevada, and I desperately need to talk to you. Do you have a minute?”
He paused. “Yes. Do you know who this is?”
“Yes. Professor Fiese. Are you alone?”
“Yes. How is Madison these days?”
“Before I tell you, could you tell me if you were one of the scientists who was out here and left last Friday?”
“It’s possible,” he said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Are you aware of the uranium mine outside our town?”
&nb
sp; “Yes.”
“Are you aware of its history?”
“I know something of that mine, yes. But I would prefer you explain more and ask fewer questions.”
“Very well. Last Friday night a friend of ours, Tim Hale, fell and slipped in that mine and landed in a pool of black oil. But something in the pool scraped his hand, and since then he has been acting strange. He almost died, and he probably murdered his girl friend—my best friend. Not only that, but he’s returned to the mine and carried out what I believe is the same stuff that got inside him, the stuff that changed him. I believe he has spread it all over our town. What I’m saying is that our whole town seems to be infected with a bizarre disease.” She paused, not able to be as clear as she wanted because she had so much pent-up emotion. It was hard for her not to ramble. “Do you follow me so far?”
He paused. “I do.”
“Do you have any comment?”
“Have you been to this mine yourself, Cass?”
“Yes. I was there when Tim cut his hand and started to act weird.”
“Have you yourself been acting weird?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Do you consider yourself in any way contaminated by this mine?”
“No.” She considered. “But I have been having strange dreams lately.”
“What kind of dreams?” he asked.
“Alien ones. I keep feeling like I’m in outer space, flying from world to world. But what does this have to do with the stuff in the mine? Do you know what it is?”
He was not rude but firm. “First you answer more of my questions. Why do you think the entire town has been contaminated by this stuff?”
“Because everyone is acting weird. Half the town was up all night walking around, going from door to door. This afternoon we’re having a special assembly that everyone is supposed to attend. Only no one will say what the assembly’s about.”
“Are you alone, Cass?”
“Yes.”
“Does anyone share your suspicions?”
“What do you mean?”
“Does anyone else know what you know?”
The Hollow Skull Page 10