Tarizon: Desert Swarm

by William Manchee

  Chapter 22

  The Warning

  Jack rolled out of bed, took a look at the room service menu, and then picked up the phone and ordered them a generous breakfast.

  “Okay, love. It’s time to get up. We’ve got a long drive home and I want to get back early enough to go see Jake. With all that’s been going on he’s gonna be pretty freaked out.”

  Dolly rolled over and sighed. “Can’t we stay here a few more days. This has been heavenly.”

  Jack smiled. “We can take up where we left off at my apartment tonight, or your place if you prefer.”

  “Yeah. But you’ll be distracted with work and I’ll have to go in to the café in the morning.”

  He went over to her and pulled her up and out of bed. They embraced. “Don’t worry. In a few weeks I think I’ll have a break between jobs and we can take a long weekend somewhere—maybe go to the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. I’ve heard it’s great.”

  “Hmm. That sounds good,” Dolly said. “You promise?”

  “I do,” he said and gave her a long kiss.

  She sighed, then went into the bathroom to take a shower. Jack turned on the TV. The morning news was just coming on. The news anchor had a solemn look on her face.

  “This is Jill Collins with the morning news. We have breaking news out of Death Valley Junction this morning where there’s been an explosion at the home of Deputy Sheriff, Mark Hanson. Jonathan Baldwin is in Death Valley Junction with a report, Jonathan.”

  The camera switched to a news reporter in slacks and a sport shirt. “Yes, Jill. Just minutes ago there was an explosion at the home of Deputy Sheriff Mark Hanson and it is presumed that he and his wife, Amanda, are dead. Miraculously, their three children survived the explosion by escaping from a bathroom window. Firemen on the scene say the explosion was caused by natural gas escaping from a kitchen stove but what’s strange about the explosion is that somehow the house was sealed up preventing the deputy and his wife from escaping. The bathroom window the children escaped from was apparently too small for their parents to make it out. What we don’t know is who sealed up the house, how they managed it, and why?”

  “Jonathan,” Jill said. “I don’t understand what you mean by the house being sealed up.”

  “Well, Jill. The doors and windows were covered with a clear substance that was very tough and impossible to penetrate, much like the rock substance at the Bat Mountain Site from where Deputy Hanson came after Randy Perkin’s murder yesterday. The children claim Hanson brought a rock from the site to the house as a souvenir and that the rock was changing colors and acting strangely last night.”

  “Wow! That is truly bizarre.”

  “I’m sure we’ll have more details later in the day as the authorities try to sort it all out.”

  “Thank you, Jonathan.”

  Dolly came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her. “What’s truly bizarre?” Dolly asked.

  “Deputy Hanson is dead. His house blew up.”

  “Oh, my God! How did that happen?”

  Jack filled her in on the story. “This whole affair is spinning out of control,” he said. “There’s something the government is not telling us about the Bat Mountain phenomenon.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That it’s a living being with a mind of its own.”

  Dolly frowned. “But how could that be?”

  “I don’t know but whatever it is, it must be mighty powerful if the government can’t keep it under control.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “Find out what it is and why the government is hiding its existence.”

  “But how can we do that?”

  “Keep digging until we get some answers.”

  “But where are you going to dig? We’re out of leads.”

  “No we’re not. We just got a new one. Deputy Hanson’s house was apparently infested with the same living organism that’s in the Living Desert Cathedral. That means if we can get onto the site maybe we can find some debris that also contains the organism.”

  “I don’t know. They’ll probably have the house sealed off from the public.”

  “True, but I’ll come up with an excuse to get in to look at it, and once I’m in I’ll pick up a sample to study.”

  “Hasn’t George already studied it?”

  “He did onsite, but he wasn’t able to take any samples away.”

  “It’s a good thing or he’d be dead too.”

  Jack nodded as there was a knock on the door. “Ah, that must be our breakfast.”

  Jack got up, went to the door and unlatched it. Just as soon as he opened it, the door came crashing in with two thugs to follow. Jack managed to duck when the first one threw a punch but the second one kicked him hard in the stomach with his boot.

  Dolly screamed and tried to go to the phone to call for help, but the first intruder grabbed her by the arm and flung her into the wall. She hit her head on a painting and fell to the ground unconscious. In the meantime Jack had risen to his feet and was coming at the assailants. Unfortunately before he could throw a punch he was blindsided and went down hard.

  “Get off me you bastard,” Jack screamed, but it was too late. The man had a firm grip on both arms and wouldn’t let go. A second man began punching him in the stomach until he started spitting out blood.”

  When the two men finally got up and turned to leave one of them said, “Forget about Bat Mountain if you care about you and your girlfriend’s life. Have a nice day.”

  Jack went over and called the operator to order an ambulance. He wasn’t worried so much about himself as he was Dolly. Concussions could be serious and he wanted to make sure she was alright. Twenty minutes later they made it to the emergency room of North Vista Hospital. While they were patching up Jack’s cuts and bruises they took Dolly in for an x-ray. While he was waiting for the results he called George and Cindy.

  “They beat you up?” George repeated.

  “Yes. Didn’t they pay you a visit?” Jack asked.

  “No. Cindy made me get up early and take her to church. She’s a good Catholic and promised her mother she wouldn’t miss mass.”

  “Well, you should thank her mother for that. . . . I told hotel security to keep an eye on your room, so you should be alright when you get back. Just watch out for cars hurdling themselves toward you in the meantime.”

  George laughed tentatively. “Right. See you in a little while.

  Fortunately the x-rays didn’t show any serious injury to Dolly so the doctors let both of them leave around 2:00 p.m. After they’d found George and Cindy and loaded the car, they drove out of town watching carefully for anyone following them but didn’t notice anybody.

  “So, I guess we should back off,” George said.

  “You can if you want, but when someone tells me to back off, I just get more motivated to keep on doing what I’m doing.”

  “Aren’t you scared?” Dolly asked.

  Jack nodded. “Not for me, but I am worried about them hurting you. We’ll have to take precautions to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  George took a deep breath. “I hope your precautions are good enough?”

  Jack smiled but didn’t respond. Time went by quickly on the way home and before they knew it they were back at Mona’s Café. After George and Cindy had left Dolly asked Jack to come to her place as she didn’t want to be home alone that night. He agreed but reminded her he needed to stop by his ex-wife’s house to see Jake. Deputy Curt Lawson’s patrol car was in the driveway when they pulled up. Jack rang the doorbell and Angela answered.

  “Hi,” Angela said giving Dolly a disapproving look. Angela’s eyes widened as she saw Jack’s cuts and bruises. “What the hell happened to you?”

  “We got an unexpected visitor to our suite at the Sands this morning?”

  Angela held the door open for them to come in. “Oh, my God! Was it a robbery?”

  Deputy Lawson who had been sitting on t
he living room sofa stood up. Jack shook his head. “No. A warning.”

  “What kind of warning?” Deputy Lawson asked.

  Jake walked in from a back room and smiled at his father. “Hi, dad.”

  Jack smiled back and then he and Dolly took a seat at the other end of the sofa.

  “We were trying to find the owner of Bat Mountain Corporation and apparently got too close,” Jack replied.

  Deputy Lawson frowned. “You think the assault was related to Bat Mountain?”

  “Yes. The assailants specifically told us to forget Bat Mountain.”

  “Huh. . . . So, who is the owner?” Deputy Lawson asked. “I’ve been meaning to get over to Vegas and find out.”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s the federal government,” Jack replied. “When we confronted the incorporator and registered agent, Paul Bradford, he went straight to the Bureau of Land Management’s local office in Las Vegas. He met with a man named Riley Wilson and when we confronted them it got ugly.”

  Jack gave them a short version of the weekend’s events.

  “Jesus,” Angela said. “I can’t believe you followed the guy. Weren’t you scared?”

  “I am now,” Jack confessed. “I wasn’t expecting them to get violent.”

  Curt shook his head angrily. “I don’t know what in the hell the government is up to but I’m sure as hell going to find out. Mark was a fellow officer and a friend and now his children are orphans.”

  “I’m afraid we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg,” Jack said. “It’s obvious the government has no idea what it’s got there at the Bat Mountain Site.”

  “It’s a monster if you ask me?” Dolly said.

  “I wouldn’t argue with that,” Angela agreed.

  “A monster we can’t ever see,” Jack noted. “In roughly twelve hours it spread from a small rock to take over an entire house. It’s smart too. It’s already figured out humans need oxygen to survive and natural gas causes explosions.”

  “So, you think there is something alive in the formation?” Curt asked.

  Jack nodded. “Something alive and alien to Earth.”

  Curt looked at Jack thoughtfully but didn’t say anything.

  “What are you going to do about this, Curt?” Angela asked.

  “I don’t know. The sheriff has ordered me to stand down and let the Army handle it.”

  “They did?” Jack asked.

  “Yes, I got a call this afternoon.”

  “You don’t buy the conspiracy theory, do you?” Jack asked.

  “No, I think the explosion was an accident. The fire inspector said there was something on the stove and when it boiled over it put out the pilot light.”

  “What about the house being sealed up?”

  Curt shrugged. “I don’t know what to make of that.”

  “Well,” Jack said. “I don’t know about you but when someone tells me I can’t do something, I become obsessed with proving them wrong.”

  Deputy Lawson smiled. “You know, that’s kind of my reaction too. I usually follow the orders of my superiors, but when an order is obviously unconscionable then I’m not obligated to follow it.”

  “Good. Maybe between you, George and myself we can figure this thing out and save some lives.”

  “How about me?” Jake protested. “I want to help.”

  Jack smiled. “Sure, we’re going to need all the help we can get.”

  They talked for another hour and then Jack and Dolly went back to Dolly’s place to try and get some sleep. In the morning Dolly went to the café and Jack detoured through Death Valley Junction to see what was left of Deputy Hanson’s home. The blast and ensuing fire had pretty much destroyed the structure and there was little left other than black rubble. There was a crime scene tape around the house, but the FBI had already packed it up and left. Ducking under the crime scene tape Jack went in for a closer look. He assumed everything that might shed some light on what had happened had been carted off by the FBI, but just in case they missed something he kept looking. He was about to give up when he noticed a brick coated in the white crystalline substance he knew had come from the Bat Mountain Site. It was sitting several yards away from the kitchen window, so he assumed it had been blown out by the initial explosion. He speculated that because of it being thrown clear of the house, whatever organism that was in the brick had survived.

  He wanted to take the brick and study it but was afraid to take it back to his house where it might do to him what it had done to Deputy Hanson. So he took it to a construction site that he was just starting to set up, but as yet had little more than a utility hookup, a load of lumber, and piles of sand and gravel to be used in the construction of a foundation. Since he knew nobody would be on the site for several weeks he dug a hole in the sand and buried the brick so nobody would know it was there. It was his intention to come back the following weekend with George when they could study it at their leisure.

  As he was driving away, he wondered how an organism so small that it could live in rock could be an intelligent life-form. It had to be intelligent, he reasoned, since it knew when it was being attacked and sought revenge against those who had injured it. He thought of the landing site and wondered if this organism was actually an alien life-form that was building itself a cocoon or crystal nest. That would explain the government’s intervention, but not their low-keyed approach to managing the site. He didn’t think they would have turned it over to the Park Service if they thought it was infested with an intelligent alien life-form. Nothing made sense to him. It was so frustrating not to be able to explain things that were happening before his very eyes.