FROM AWAY ~ BOOK FOUR Read online

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the patrol car, the screen lights up: INCOMING CALL FROM DAWN LESGUETTES

  Netty reaches for it automatically. Pulls back when she reads the name. “What in hell?”

  Ren frowns. “Why is she calling you?” He pulls out his own phone. Checks it for missed calls. Finds none.

  “One way to find out.” Netty taps the screen. Speaks into the air. “Hello?”

  “Sheriff? It’s Dawn Lesguettes calling.”

  “Hi there, Dawn. How can I help you?”

  “Uh, it’s... I’m just with Max and we... Got into some trouble, I guess.”

  Netty wrenches the wheel to the right. Screams off the road onto the shoulder. “Why isn’t Max calling, Dawn? Is he okay?”

  “No, he’s all right. He just-- He lost his phone before, and now--” Coughing in the background: Max.

  Netty’s eyes panic. Her voice stays strong: “If you can’t tell me what’s happening--”

  “He’s okay, he just--”

  “Put him on.”

  “His throat’s just kinda raw, so he--”

  “Dawn. Put Max on. Now.”

  The air is empty a moment. Then, a croak: “Mom?”

  “You okay?”

  Two coughs. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Netty seethes. “So, what then? Seem like a good idea, getting somebody else to call? A way to avoid an argument or something?”

  “No, no. My throat’s just--”

  “Maybe you need to think for a second about how I’m going to react at this point, to a phone call - from somebody else - calling to tell me news about my son. What would you guess a call like that might do to me? Given how close I just came to losing you?”

  “Shit, Mom... I didn’t even think about that.”

  “I’d say you didn’t.” Netty pauses. Calms. “Rest your voice, Max. Put Dawn back on.”

  The phone is passed. “Sheriff?”

  “Where you guys at? We’re coming to get you.”

  “Uh... Do you know the black tree?”

  Netty slaps her forehead. Ren shuts his eyes. Rubs one temple. “Adderpool, Dawn? You’ve been to Adderpool?”

  “Dad?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I’m here, too, kid. Any particular reason why I wasn’t your first call?”

  “I just... Wasn’t sure you’d know how to get here.”

  “To Adderpool? Yeah, I know how to get to Adderpool.”

  There’s a pause. “We’re both fine. We’ll wait by the black tree.”

  “Yeah. Hang tight. We’re on our way.” Ren taps the monitor. Takes a couple tries before hanging up properly. He looks to Netty. “Kids, right?”

  “The absolute worst.” Netty agrees. “You okay to postpone the convent visit?”

  “Pfft.” He waves her off. “Need me to drive?”

  She rolls her eyes. Doesn’t bother to dignify the question. Just throws on the siren and peels out onto the dark highway.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The patrol boat is a skipped stone. Bouncing across the waves. Cracking against the surface. Hard enough to be heard over the loudly protesting engine.

  “Jaysus-Aitch, she’s burnin’ into the damn thing! Ya’ve got to stop her!” Over the radio, Martin provides play-by-play of events beyond their control. Only adding to the cacophony.

  Lonnie at the helm. Sylvie behind him. Suited up. Holding on for dear life. Closely watching the monitors over his shoulder. He throttles back when she pats his head. Slowing enough to keep the boat from going airborne. Enough for her to make her way to the starboard gunwale. Where she plants a foot briefly. Then pushes off. Diving headlong into the ocean with the ‘bubble-maker’ held out ahead of her. Motor revving.

  Hitting the water, the machine takes over. Shoots forward in a froth of bubbles and foam. Sylvie grips the handles tightly. Pulled along behind it. Blind through the windshield, she looks to the four inch monitor on the machine’s dash. Night-vision lights up the water.

  Just ahead: The obelisk. Tower One’s underwater camera. Sylvie veers around it.

  Beyond that: Another stone pillar rises from the deep. Faintly glowing orb perched atop it. Pulse generator O-19. One of many, regularly spaced in a halo around the island. This one, closest to Tower One. Currently mounted by a woman in a black wetsuit.

  Legs wrapped around the column, the woman works a caulking gun. Squeezing the trigger. Drawing a line of white gel onto the metal mesh shell. Where the gel touches, a reaction occurs: The metal melts. Finishing the third edge of a large square, she lowers the gun. Forces her fingers into the gap. Bends the metal back. Leaving an open hole. Not quite big enough to fit the grey brick she pulls from a bag over her shoulder. She tries forcing it, anyway.

  On the bubble-maker, a red light flashes. Warning Sylvie of imminent failure. Getting too close to the pulse generator. Its electronics at risk of frying. Twisting the handles, she gets a final burst of speed, then shuts the thing down. Counting on momentum to carry her forward.

  Aiming at the dim glow. Headed for the pulse generator. Holding her course as best she can manage. Only slowing slightly before the machine’s blunt nose slams directly into the neck of the unsuspecting saboteur. Sylvie doesn’t hear the snap through the water. But she feels it.

  Releasing the bubble-maker, she grabs for the column. Catches hold. Pulls herself up to the orb. Face to face with the gap in its exterior. A clay brick pressed half-in, half-out. A small black box jammed into its soft surface. Hot to the touch. A detonator of some kind. Electronics might get nuked this close to the orb, but a timed chemical reaction wouldn’t be affected.

  How much time remains? No way of knowing. Not long, though.

  Sylvie pulls the brick from the hole as best she can. Pushes off from the column. Swims to the prone body of the red-headed saboteur, turning slowly in the water nearby. She yanks one of the twin scuba cylinders free from the woman’s back. Presses the pliant explosive brick onto its flat end. Snaps off its valve. The tank hurtles away. Carving through the ocean in a spiral of bubbles.

  It hasn’t gotten far when the explosive detonates.

  The concussion hammers back through the water. Swatting Sylvie like a giant hand. Its impact the last thing she feels.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Somebody’s wet themselves.

  Scoutmaster Brad’s first thought on waking.

  High humidity in the tent. The air musty. The sharp tang he’s smelling isn’t necessarily urine. Though Alvin does have a sordid history of overnight accidents. It could simply be the scent of six unshowered scouts on day three of their camping trip. That would be explanation enough.

  But turning over in his sleeping bag, he finds the fabric soaked through beneath him. Leading him to his second and far more terrible thought: That he might be responsible.

  Please, God, don’t do this to me.

  Knowing his fragile authority over the boisterous and opinionated boys is already so slim as to be nearly non-existent, Scoutmaster Brad begs the universe and every deity he can name for mercy. This cannot be. He cannot have peed himself in the night. Not in the presence of the scouts. If so? Might as well retire. Change his name. Move to another country. Even then, he may never leave the indignity behind.

  The universe answers his entreaties. With a trickling. Not from him. From outside the tent.

  Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

  Sitting up, Scoutmaster Brad finds himself alone. His charges all absent. Sleeping bags and backpacks gone. The floor of the tent wet from edge to edge. Puddling in places. If this is some sort of prank the little bastards have played on him...

  He’ll take it. Face the joke head on. With as much grace and good humor as he can muster. Laugh along. Congratulate them on their cleverness.

  Just grateful he hasn’t pissed himself.

  ~

  Sleeping bags festoon the low branches. Hung out to dry. Every bit as wet as his own. Apparently, no one escaped the drenching.

  Not a prank
, then.

  Scoutmaster Brad inhales the morning. Reaches back to detach the wet fabric of his boxers from the crack of his pale white ass. Shivering. Wringing out the hem of his lucky Rush concert t-shirt. Stepping out of the tent. Into mud.

  Thick, black mud. Covering every inch of the clearing.

  Peeling off his mud-covered sock, Scoutmaster Brad steps into his - thankfully dry - hiking boots. Squishes out of the tent to investigate.

  The trickling directs him. Leads him behind the campsite. Where water is still pouring down the hillside. Flowing directly toward their tent. Pooling against its rear wall. Water-resistant nylon deflects most of it, but isn’t entirely impermeable. Given the volume of water moving past, the soaking could’ve been far worse.

  Scoutmaster Brad shifts uncomfortably. It’s first thing in the morning. He really does need to pee. The trickling and general wetness are not helping any. Unfortunately, finding his charges must be the first order of business. Until then, his bladder will need to soldier on.

  From somewhere beyond the top of the incline, a motor hums. Barely carrying into the valley where they set up camp. Bursting around the sound: Shouts. Squeals. The voices of his kids. Off on their own. Without him. Aggressively independent, as always. Unconcerned with permission. Investigating the cause of the mini-deluge by themselves. Leaving their adult chaperone to pneumonia. Not minding if he drowns in his sleep, so long as he doesn’t spoil their fun.

  So Scoutmaster Brad steps back. Looks for a dry route up the hill. Intent on doing exactly that.

  ~

  “The manual suggests a shallow trench encircling any temporary enclosure erected on low ground. To divert water away from sleeping quarters in the event of rain or flooding.”

  Guthrie greets Scoutmaster Brad near the top of the incline. Handbook in hand. Open to an old-fashioned diagram which somehow survived every revision and reprinting since the original edition was published in 1936: A determined scout in a buzzcut. Wielding a garden trowel. Drawing a narrow moat in the dirt around a pup-tent.

  “I told you last night: There was no rain in the forecast, Guthrie.” He turns up his palms. Looks heavenward. “And look... No rain.”

  “But aren’t we supposed to be pre--”

  “Howsabout we just save the I-told-you-sos for after I’ve got a handle on what’s happening here, okay?” He pats the type-A pre-teen on the shoulder. Steps around him.

  Here, at the crest of the hill, the hum is more of a chugging. Produced by a utility pump hooked to a car battery. Its yellow draining hose snaking through the undergrowth. Emptying muddy brown water down the slope. The source of their soaking.

  “Brad! Brad! Check this out!”

  At the edge of a nearby clearing, the pump’s red siphoning hose pulls water from a square pond someone has carved into the ground for reasons unknown. Over this stands a simple frame, built of pvc pipe. Alvin is perched atop it. Next to him, Jackie shimmies across. Heading toward a pulley, hung from the center. Dangling just above the water. Reaching for it when Scoutmaster Brad shouts: “Guys! Get down from there! How do you even know it can support your weight?”

  “Four of us were already on it before.” Jackie’s pubescent voice cracks. Irritating at the best of times. Inflected with a tone of whiny disappointment, it has Scoutmaster Brad hoping the kid falls in.

  “Yeah, well... Let’s don’t press our luck any further than that, then. Come on.”

  Eye-rolls, but obedience. The boys back up toward either end of the pipe. Climb down.

  “Eight feet to the bottom.” Paulo reaches a long tree branch into the brackish water. Altogether too close to the edge. Tapping at the hole’s solid floor. “It’s reinforced down there, too. Like the sides. Not just dirt.”

  “Yeah?” Scoutmaster Brad peers into the pool. Clearly man-made. Strangest thing he’s stumbled across in twenty years of camping.

  “We think it’s a spring or something. The pump’s been going since before we got up, but the water level never changes.” The boy moves his pole around. Leaning out over the water. The ripples only serve to remind Scoutmaster Brad of his increasingly urgent need to pee.

  “Okay, you get back, too, wouldja? Your parents will have my hide.”

  Frowning, Paulo pulls out his wooden probe. Demarcations carved into the bark every half-foot. He drops it to one side. Efforts unappreciated. Scoutmaster Brad softens. “That was good work, though, Paulo. Just... Try not to take unnecessary risks, okay?”

  Paulo shrugs. Wanders away from the pool.

  Guthrie. Alvin. Jackie. Paulo. That’s four of them accounted for. Two more, and he can find a bush to disappear behind. “Hey guys, where are--”

  Shunk-shunk-SHUNK!

  Nearby, Tran stands next to a stack of lumber. Holding up a sheet of plywood with both hands. Wide-eyed at the three two-inch nails suddenly pointing through the wood at his face. “Holy shit,” he chortles. “Go again.”

  A few feet away, Brady aims the nail gun at the plywood. About to pull the trigger.

  “Hey-Hey-Hey!” Scoutmaster Brad waves his hands. Runs toward them. “Are you serious, here? Jesus Christ, put that thing down.” He can see Brady gauging whether he can get away with loosing one more round first. “Right now, Brady!”

  “Gah!” Brady lowers the nail gun. Tosses it onto a pile of lumber.

  “All right, I get you guys were curious, but this stuff wasn’t left here for us to play with. And whoever set this all up... You can bet they won’t be happy to come back and find--”

  Guthrie pipes up: “This is public land. You’re not allowed to dig up public land like this. We need to do something about it, don’t we?”

  Scoutmaster Brad isn’t sure what Guthrie’s suggesting. Knows it won’t be fun.

  “Aren’t we supposed to be stewards of the environment?” The boy pages through his dog-eared handbook. “That’s what it says. And that means we’re not supposed to let anyone bring harm to--”

  “Now look: We don’t have the first idea what--”

  The boys shout over their scoutmaster:

  “No, Guthrie’s right.”

  “We can’t let them get away with this.”

  “If it’s public land, that means they have to share with everyone, right?”

  “Guys, shut up! Listen!” Paulo looks off through the woods.

  Everyone quiets. Over the constant grumbling of the pump: An engine approaches. The boys cluster together. Still spoiling for a fight.

  “Okay. Guys. Whoever this is, I’ll talk to them, all right? Ask what this is all about. But I need you jamokes to clear out first. Get back to camp. Get breakfast started. Who was supposed to be in charge of firewood? Day Three, huh? Alvin? We don’t even have a fire yet. Let’s get going, guys. Hop to!”

  Scowls. Muttering. The scouts half-slide down the slope. Necks craned to get a look at the muddy green Jeep pulling into the clearing. Scoutmaster Brad turns his back on them. No idea what he’ll say to the driver. No clue why he’ll be saying anything at all. Though a lifelong scout, Brad is no steward of the environment. He just likes nature and knows a lot of campfire songs.

  The man who climbs out of the Jeep makes him regret he’s not still tucked into his cold, wet sleeping bag. Tall and muscular. Bald and tattooed. Moving with purpose. On a very specific mission. No interest in anything else. Passing the uninvited stranger without a glance. Neither acknowledging nor replying to Scoutmaster Brad’s mumbled and half-hearted, “G’morning.”

  The man crosses to the edge of the hole. Assesses the water for a moment. Then, lashes out. Kicking the useless pump for all he’s worth. Knocking loose the intake hose. Tipping the whole thing onto its side. There it sputters unhappily until the man reaches down. Shuts the thing off.

  For a moment, the world is entirely silent. Slowly, sounds of life return. Fill the void. The woodland murmurs to itself. The bald man just stares into the water.

  Hoping to leave things as they stand, Scoutmaster Brad glances down the hill.
From its base, all six of his charges watch expectantly. No retreat available. Not without them knowing. Might as well get the confrontation over with.

  Clearing his throat, he steps forward. “So, hey... We were wondering... What’s all this about?”

  Spurred to action, the man almost seems to have registered the presence of the other human being. Instead, strides back to his Jeep.

  “Do you have some sort of permit for... This? Because we had to get one, just to camp here, and what you’re doing seems a lot more... Damaging, potentially... To the natural flora.”

  Veins stand out along the man’s tattooed arms as he lifts a large white sack from the rear of his vehicle. The Jeep rises two inches. Sighs, creakily. Relieved to be free of the weight.

  “What I’m saying is: We try to follow a strict no-impact policy. Leave only footprints, you know? Take only pictures... And I’d hope we could count on you to also do your best to--”

  The bright pink label stands out on the sack as the man carries it past:

  Vivid Tracing Pigment

  FLUORESCING SHOCKING MAGENTA

  Beneath it, a collection of cautions and warnings take up as much space as the company logo.

  “What are you...”

  The man drops the sack next to the pool. Pulls a multi-tool from his back pocket. One-handed, he opens a blade. Slices through the fabric. Spills a white powder into the water. Dying it almost instantly an eye-scorching pink.

  “Hey!” Scoutmaster Brad leaps forward. Grabs the top of the extremely heavy bag. Drags it back from the lip of the hole. “You can’t just pour toxic chemicals anywhere you--”

  Now, the man pays attention. He yanks Scoutmaster Brad away from the pond. Slams him into the nearest tree trunk. One hand around his throat. The other still clutching the knife.

  Already primed by his wet morning wake-up call and strained well-beyond capacity, Brad’s bladder finally releases. Even so, his first thought is for his kids. He looks down the hill. Croaks: “Stay there! It’s okay... I’m okay.” For their part, the scouts haven’t moved. Frozen in place by the attack on their leader.