by Jeff Seats
FEELING FULL OF himself as the assumed leader, Dick paused at the top of a rise, arms akimbo, looking like a scout exploring out ahead of a wagon train. He made sure to strike this commanding pose for everyone to see; positioning himself so that the clear blue sky behind him silhouetted his chiseled physique. He stood there pretending to search out ahead of the group but watched from the corner of his eye as the rest of the passengers trudged up the rise to join him. Then he saw that son of a bitch limp up behind everyone else. Shit! He thought. Why didn't he just stay back with the bus?
As a distraction, Dick decided to do the job he appointed himself to and take a look to see what was around them. To the left was that chain linked fence they’d been following. To the right, there was a whole lot of empty ground broken up by scrub, tumbleweed, and juniper. There was no indication of people anywhere. No fingers of smoke rising from a chimney. No power lines or telephone poles. No cell towers. There wasn’t even a rusted hulk of an old abandoned car; nothing except for the chain-link fence topped with razor wire that they had been following along the side of the road. There had also been no sign of the bus driver on the way to this spot, and from this vantage point, he saw nothing that would suggest anything different up ahead. He thought for sure they would find that old hippie sitting along the side of the road collapsed from exhaustion.
Wilson dared to step close to Dick and asked, “See anything?”
“Does it look like there’s anything to see? In case you hadn't been paying attention for the last hour take a look now. Do you see anything?”
“I, um... It just looked like you may have spotted something the way you were staring out into the distance. Couldn't tell, sorry."
From over by the fence Kelvin called out. “Hey, check out this sign!” He was referring to a yellow, rusted metal sign hanging on it. "No Trespassing. Department of Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs. Hey, an Indian reservation. What's a RES SITE-ALPHA?"
While the others focused on Kelvin and the sign, Cindra O’Neil had followed the fence for a few more yards. She stumbled over a piece of weathered wood, looked down and discovered the hole that the bus driver had excavated under the chain-link.
“Hey, Daddy! Look at this.”
Everyone walked over to her position and looked at the opening scooped out under the fence.
Ellie asked, “You think a coyote could have done that?”
Kelvin feigned a child's reaction. “I hope not; coyotes creep me out. All that howling that they do; they're freaky.”
Jenna gave up a coyote yelp from behind Kelvin who turned and laughed giving her a slight slap on the arm.
“Hey! Look over there.” Steph pointed to the barn hidden by shrubs and trees.
Marion said, "It's a building. Might be someone there who can help. Maybe the bus driver is there.”
Paul added, “If the bus driver saw it then he may have dug this hole himself.”
Again, it was time for some real leadership and Dick offered it up. “Well, no reason for us not to check it out.” He stepped back from the hole and waved his arm towards the gap under the fence pointing the way for someone to make the first move. The passengers all looked to each other to see who would be the first to crawl under the fence. No one stepped forward.
“No one?” Dick asked. “Okay then. You first sweetheart.” He said to Ellie giving her a bit of a push into the hole. Ellie, who was standing on the edge, lost her balance and slid down the loose dirt almost falling on her face, but she reached out and caught the links of the fence saving her from total embarrassment. She looked back to Dick still standing on the edge of the hole.
“Come on what're you waiting for?” Dick asked impatiently.
Ellie gave Dick a look that could have been either caused by her squinting from the bright sunlight or by the growing number of questions that were bouncing around in her head regarding her boyfriend. Whichever the reason, she lowered herself to crawl under the fence and began to shimmy through the opening. Half way through she felt a foot pushing down on her butt. “Hey!” She let out.
“Your pants were going to get caught on the wires,” Dick said with mock concern. “Sorry. Just helping.”
Under her breath, Ellie responded, “Right,” finished crawling through the gap and stood on the other side.
“See, that was easy,” Dick said to everyone.
As she brushed herself off, Ellie asked, “Are you going to stand there and help the others like you did me or are you coming next?” This came out louder than she expected and could see Dick was none-to-thrilled by the comment, but it was too late to take it back. She did see that Paul, standing at the back of the group, was smiling and nodding his head obviously enjoying the exchange. Dick gave Ellie a dark glare then instantly he grinned and turned to the others.
“Okay, now my turn,” Dick said while shooting daggers with his eyes towards Ellie. He hopped down and expertly got through the opening without the jagged fingers of wire fence even touching him as though it were a drill he had run on the practice field a million times. On the other side, he stood next to Ellie and put his arm around her shoulder in a seemingly loving embrace but his fingers dug into her arm transmitting his anger all the while still grinning. “Come on you all. Let's do this!”
Hesitantly the rest followed. First went Jenna and Kelvin, making quite the production out of it. Kelvin pretended to get caught on the ragged wire ends of the woven wire fence and then acted out a film scenario with a killer about to get him. “I'm stuck! Go on without me.”
“No, damn it. Your life means something. You can't give up.” Jenna responded.
Steph interrupted, “Give it up you two and get a move on.”
“I don't think girlfriend likes the show, Jen.”
“No accounting for taste Kel. Come on give me your hand.” Jenna reached out and helped Kelvin through.
Steph followed trying not to get her pants dirty.
Kelvin loudly whispered to Jenna, “Saw more dirt on her clothes after she and Dick came back from behind the trees.” Jenna punched him for his naughty comment and laughed.
Steph turned a cold shoulder to both that said, “Think what you like,” as she walked by them.
Wilson went through before his family then paused on the other side of the fence to help them as they passed under it. Cindra crawled under with no problem even though Marion fussed about her getting her clothes snagged.
Marion took her turn and hesitated, afraid that she was going to get hung up. Paul stepped down and grabbed the bottom of the fence in a not very successful attempt at making the opening a bit larger. He didn't move anything, but Marion seemed to think he did, and she passed under without a hitch. The placebo effect in action.
The O'Neils hugged and moved off to join the rest who were heading towards the barn leaving Paul, alone, still on the other side of the fence. Hey, thanks. He thought. Crippled war vet here. Well, crippled might be working it a bit but he stood on one side of the fence with a bum knee, and they were walking away from him like he didn't exist on the other. What had his shrink told him? “At times like these take a moment to calm yourself. Breathe in and slowly exhale. Let the frustration out. You do yourself and others no good if you dwell on perceived slights.” In. Out. Ah, okay now he was back...sort of.
Paul bent down and moved under the fence with some difficulty. This type of obstacle would have been a breeze for him back in basic but with his knee not cooperating it was a slow, painful exercise. Clearing the jagged wire, he awkwardly he got back to his feet and moved to join the others when he noticed that Dick had turned to check on his progress. The frown he saw indicated that Dick was not happy to see that Paul had made it under the fence. He bent to rub his knee. The pain pills were starting to wear off. He saw Dick turn back with a smile, apparently satisfied with Paul's handicap. He reached for the bottle but thought he should wait before taking any more. Who knew how long they would be out here? Instead, he gave the knee a good rub and walked/limped his wa
y over to the barn joining the others who stood outside of it not moving.
The passengers had stopped at the open door of the building not making a move. Dick stepped up to the threshold and peered inside. All he could see was the shaft of light that illuminated the planked floor and the outline of his cast shadow. Outside the area of the floor delineated by the sunlight, there was nothing but darkness. “I can't see a God damned thing.” Without hesitating Dick pushed the door open wider and stepped through and into the barn.
Dick blinked to adjust his eyesight to the dark interior, but all he could see was the bright V shape cast onto the floor from the door opening and the complete blackness surrounding it.
Steph pushed the door open wider still, and the cast light on the floor reached further into the barn. At that moment Dick thought he saw a dark form, a shadow, blacker than the surrounding darkness, dart out of the way of the growing beam of light.
Dick turned back to Ellie. “Did you see that?” Fear evident in his voice.
The others had been inching into the barn but stopped when they heard what Dick said. Looking around, no one else saw anything, but they remained frozen in their tracks afraid to advance or retreat.
From the rear of the group Paul stepped forward following the beam of light. He walked past Dick and stopped at an object on the floor that the expanded area of illumination had revealed. It was the bus driver's hat. “Looks like the driver did come in here. Where do you think he is?”
Snapping out of his stupor, Dick pushed Paul aside, bent down and put the hat on his head. Turning to show off, as if he were just crowned king of the lost passengers, he announced, “Hey, now I’m officially the boss.”
Everyone stared at Dick in horror.
“What?”
Ellie stammered and pointed. “There’s bl...blood coming out of the hat!”
Dick touched his forehead and felt dampness. He looked at his fingers and saw blood on them. “What the fuck!” He threw the hat to the ground. A ring of dripping blood circled Dick’s forehead and clung to his hair.
A rustling sound was heard coming from the rafters above. A quick movement caught only in peripheral vision. Threads of a dark shadow black against the darkness moved quickly over their heads. It flitted from one side of the group to the other, at once here, encircling them and then, over there. The passengers could feel a presence with them in the barn like a tingling surge of electricity charging through the atmosphere.
Several tried to focus their eyes on the flitting black tendrils but they could see nothing. When they stopped trying to see it, however, their peripheral vision caught it again darting about in the dark shadows, staying away from the beam of light streaming in from the open door.
Dick didn't hesitate. He quickly turned and elbowed his way to the door in a mad dash to be the first to leave. The others followed in various forms of panic. Ellie stood in the beam of light, not sure what caused the stampede and not quite sure how to feel about Richard leaving her alone. No, not alone. Paul was still there too.
Paul crouched down to look at the hat grimacing as he forced his knee into compliance. Like a detective studying a crime scene, he looked around the interior of the barn. He could see nothing but he had felt the same “presence” as the rest of them. Looking back at the bloody hat he shook his head and said somberly, “Doesn’t seem like the driver will be making any more birthday parties.” Reaching out with an extended arm to the floor, he pushed up from a crouch and stood unsteadily. As he did so, his foot kicked something hidden in the shadows. He stooped to see what it was and picked up the bus driver's 9 mm.
“What’s that?” Ellie asked him.
“It was the driver’s,” showing Ellie the pistol as he checked the clip which appeared to be about half full. “Looks like he fired it a few times. I wonder if it helped.” He replaced the clip and put the gun into the back of his pants waistband.
“Bad shot?” Ellie suggested.
“No, I think he knew how to use this. Something else had to have been going on.” He looked around the barn. “Where is he? Weird.” He kicked the bloody hat out of the way. “All of it. Damned weird.”
He turned to leave. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.” Together they walked out of the barn as the black tendrils continued dancing around them in the shadows.
Outside the barn, the group had scattered in all directions. Their sole motivation at the moment was to get away from that creepy place and as far as possible. The driver's bloody hat was one thing, and a bad one at that, but what was it that they had just seen, felt...experienced? A black shadow darker than the surrounding darkness of the unlit room. More than a shadow. A truly black form that moved with a speed that made one question reality.
There was something, someone in the barn with them and it most likely had killed the driver.
The passengers circled the barn looking back with heightened caution; their animal instincts for self-preservation dialed up to ten. Paul and Ellie were about to crawl back under the fence when they heard Jenna. She was waving and yelling.
“Hey! Come over here! I think we’re saved!” Jenna yelled out to the rest of the group.
Jenna continued waving, and Kelvin jumped up and down excitedly. The others soon joined them and found themselves at the top of a hill looking down at a small town sitting on the valley floor.
Having regained his composure and reasserting his command status, Dick smiled and gave Steph a pull on her arm. “What are we waiting for? Come on. Let’s go!” Together they ran down the hill towards the town and the end of their nightmare.
««« ‡ »»»
A TECH SAT at a workstation in Con-West, several monitors were in front of him; a red warning icon was madly flashing away on the screens. Eyes wide with surprise, the technician grabbed a phone and hit one of the keys.
Con-West Commander Samantha Cole put down the report she had been reading and picked up her ringing phone. “Yes?”
“Ah, ma’am. I think you should know that there is an alarm coming from Site Alpha.”
Cole looked up from her desk and through the glass wall of her office that provided her a panorama of the command center. With the phone pressed up to her ear, she stood and looked at the big screen in front of the room. A large map of the western United States showed a series of scattered dots representing the various CSC reservations in the region, all showing a solid green light. All except for the flashing red dot in Eastern Oregon.
“Ah, Fuck!”
“Ma’am?”
“You heard me. Keep watch on matters while I call Agent Wright and the Action Team.”
The commander of Con-West drew in a deep breath. This was NOT one of the things that Cole wanted to deal with today. She reached down to the phone and punched in Craig’s number.
—— SMALL TOWN U.S.A. ——
AT THE TOP of the hill, Paul stood in a fog unaware of the others running past him. He could only focus on the bloody cap. Obviously, the driver, Eddie, had been murdered. But aside from the cap, there was no other indication that he was dead.
He mentally reviewed the interior of the barn. There was no sign of blood other than what was in the upside down cap. While it seemed to hold an enormous amount of blood—an average adult male has ten or so pints coursing through his body—the cap contained nowhere near a pint, let alone ten. Where was the rest of his blood?
For that matter, where was the driver? If his body was still in the barn, it should have been easily found, but Paul couldn't remember seeing any drag marks across the dusty floorboards. So, had the body been moved? Carried out? Not easily, there was a lot of man underneath that cap. So where was Eddie's body? And why would anyone kill him in the first place?
Paul just stood shaking his head. Nothing about what he had seen in that barn made any sense. What was that thing that seemed to hover around in the shadows that spooked everyone? It appeared to be thick cobwebs or dust caught up in a swirl of wind; even though the air was still, and it l
ooked like it moved independently. Cobwebs and dust don't kill a man, but who or what did? Aside from the driver's footprints in the thick layer of dust, the barn showed no sign of any other human having been inside. Awk! This hurt his head. The situation required experienced Army CID investigators, but he wasn't sure that even they could figure this one out.
He watched as the others made their way towards the town. Paul couldn't blame them for running ahead for help, not after what they had just seen... Witnessed? Frankly, it was just a bit too creepy even for him and what he had experienced in Afghanistan. He reached behind his back and felt for the 9mm. At least he had the old Marine's Beretta. Just in case. Thanks for that brother.
The voices of the others brought his focus back to the top of the hill where he was looking down at Dick and Steph acting like they were in a race to beat the others to the bottom of the hill. Jenna and Kelvin held hands, like first-graders during recess, skipping down the slope. The O'Neils slowly picked their way through the knee-high grass; avoiding any holes or hidden rocks that might trip them up, careful of where their daughter stepped.
“Watch out for that hole sweetie.” Marion fretted.
“Let me lift you over this rock.” Wilson urged.
Paul watched and wondered what kind of childhood could that little girl possibly have when fawned over as she was; living in a protective bubble. But, then, he didn't know them. Who was he to judge? Maybe she had hemophilia or something bad like that. It wouldn't be good to get an injury that could drain you of your blood in their current situation.
And speaking of not judging, there was Ellie off to his right by several paces. What was going on with her? What was going on with him? He chose to follow the group because of her instead of staying with the bus which was the only smart thing to have done.
After the others had gone far enough ahead, Ellie started moving down the hill on her own. Paul observed her slow progress, as she stepped around objects in the unfamiliar terrain. He thought that she might be moving slowly not just for safety but also trying to be careful not to catch up with the rest of the group; possibly she even had wanted to go down into the town with him. He shook his head. That’s wrong-think my friend. He thought. She’s not interested in guys like you.