Bad Land (10 page)

Chapter 19

“Diane, you have to hear this!” Ann yelled in excitement as soon as her boss entered the warehouse.

Diane’s high-heels clicked down the cement floor leading to the trio. First she gave Marshall a disapproving look then played the gracious host and introduced herself to Jonah. “Hello, my name is Diane Whitmer.”

Jonah stood from his seat, smoothing down his faded shirt and jeans. “Hello, ma’am, my name is Jonah. I’m sorry about not having taken the proper channels in entering the group, but we do have information that can help each other and we both want the same thing.”

“Please,” she said, releasing his hand and skewering Marshall with another stare, “it’s not your fault.”

“Diane,” Ann said again. “He knows how to kill them!”

Marshall raised his eyebrows, as he had never heard anyone so happy when it came to killing someone else.

“Does he now?” Diane said, taking a seat in the last empty chair. “Please, Jonah, do share.”

Like a true performer, Jonah opened his arms, taking in their surroundings. “Well, ma’am, in no way do I have the same resources as you—but I do have this.” Jonah reached down and pulled out a worn book from his box. The book was a hundred years old if it was a day. The spine of the book was torn and the outside covers had clearly seen better years. Jonah gently placed the book on the table like it was his most valuable possession. “Do you know what this is?”

Ann shook her head.

“A really, really old book,” Marshall guessed.

“It’s the second volume of the history of the founding Native Americans. The first tribe to have found the stone.”

All eyes turned to Diane. She was staring at the book like it was made out of solid gold.

“That’s correct, Diane,” Jonah said with an approving smile.

“How did you know that?” Ann asked.

“Because I’ve found the first volume.”

The group sat silent, staring at the book that held all the answers Diane and Ann had been looking for. “You have the first book?” Jonah asked with a twinkle in his eye.

“Yes,” Diane said.

“Here? Here in the warehouse? That book is invaluable—it tells of the—”

“Yes, Jonah, it is invaluable, but no, it is not here with me. I keep it somewhere close and safe.”

Jonah wet his lips and Marshall caught a look in the old man’s eyes he had never seen before. Was it honest curiosity or something darker? He had no time to wonder further as Diane continued the conversation.

“How did you get that?” Diane asked.

“Oh, an old man has his ways. But more important than that is what’s inside.”

“The book talks about the stone and how to kill them, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, much more than that. The stone is not the only object of power that still exists in this world.”

Marshall couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “You mean there are more stones? There are more ways to turn immortal than the way the Indians found?”

“Oh, I didn’t mean multiple stones. I meant there are other objects that provide different powers. But excuse me, I’m getting ahead of myself. What you all want to know is how to kill them.” Jonah gently opened the cover and turned the pages as a priest would when giving the most important sermon of his life.

He had a captive audience and he knew he could take his time. If Marshall had to guess, he would say the old man was even enjoying himself. “Here it is. I’ve had to learn the Indians’ native tongue to read the text, so bear with me.”

Jonah squinted, making his gray and white bushy eyebrows twitch up and down. “Bows, knives, spears—everything has failed. But today we have found a way to end this war. A way to kill the tribe that has stolen the power from Mother Earth. Just like everything that lives has a heartbeat, so to do the Immortals. Cut at or shoot them in the heart and they will cease to be. Only a direct shot to the heart will work.”

Jonah stopped and lowered the book. “There is much more, of course, but their heart is the key. When we do find them and the stone, we know how to kill them.”

“Are you sure?” Diane asked. “The heart?”

“Why yes, of course I am.”

“My book, the first volume, mentions something about—”

“Oh no, I’m positive that this is the key.” Jonah cut her off while looking around to reassure the group.

Ann smiled like a child on Christmas morning. “We know how to kill them now, and I think I may have found where the rituals are taking place.”

Ann reached down beside her chair and pulled a laptop from the ground. She opened the screen and placed the computer on the table. The four strangers brought together by fate grouped around the screen, eager to see.

Ann clicked a few icons and opened a window with an aerial view of the canyon. She dragged the camera around and zoomed into a place deep in the canyon’s interior.

“Ann, what exactly are we looking at?” Diane asked from over her shoulder. “And where did you get this?”

“This is a view of the canyon from a satellite.” She cleared her throat timidly. “I got it when I hacked into a government network.”

Marshall had to give a short laugh. He had known Ann for years yet he had never even known her at all.

“I was able to pull some city records and found a map of the area when the city was founded. There were a few buildings up when the Lloyds and Whitmers came into town in 1850 that are still up today and others that have been destroyed.”

Ann clicked on her computer a few more times and brought up a crude map. She overlapped the older map on top of the new and they fit perfectly.

“So these are the buildings in the area that are up today and that were up back when the city was founded. As you can see, there is only a handful that are still standing now.”

Marshall, Diane, and Jonah looked at the screen that showed three poorly kept buildings and five skeletal looking plots of ground that looked as though they had once held houses.

“And how does this help us?” Marshall asked.

Ann snickered. “Come on, Mr. Reporter, these are the original plots of ground. The stone has to be in or near one of them.”

“I can help narrow our search,” Jonah volunteered. “The building’s no longer there. I remember it as a boy and I’ve been to the canyon since, looking for it. It’s not standing anymore.”

Ann squinted and zoomed in on the five plots of ground that were free of current buildings. They all looked the same. Large areas of ground with rubble from buildings that stood there long ago.

How could they narrow down the search even further? Marshall racked his brain for an answer. There had to be a way. “Ann, how far can you magnify our view?”

“Let’s see,” Ann said, biting her lower lip. She clicked a few keys on the keyboard and whatever satellite feed she had hacked into zoomed in again. The clarity was amazing. “Well, there we go, perfect. I can see each blade of grass. Our tax dollars hard at work. What are we looking for again?”

“Move around the perimeter of each plot. I’m looking for something,” Marshall said.

Ann obeyed, but after a few minutes of roaming around mindlessly, she had had enough. “Soooo, what are we looking for?”

“If you kept the secret to eternal life in a place like that, wouldn’t you think it would be well-protected?”

Diane caught what Marshall was hinting at. “Like guards patrolling the grounds, cameras, and barbed wire. Good point.”

The four leaned in even closer. Ann rotated the camera around the first plot of ground and then the second, but there was no sign that anyone had taken the time to update the ground’s security. They approached the third one and then the fourth.

“Wait!” Jonah’s yell sliced through the silence and made them all jump. “Sorry, can you go back? I think I saw something.”

Ann panned the camera in reverse and they all saw what the old man had managed to pick up. There was an outline of a person walking the grounds, in his hand was a radio. “I can’t zoom in anymore to tell what kind of clothes he’s wearing, to see if he’s a security guard or just someone out for a walk.”

“No,” Diane said. “He’s not out for a walk. The closest home is miles away.”

“And look at this.” Marshall pointed to the screen at a large stone pillar that had been toppled. The group followed his finger and squinted to see what looked like a small box with a blinking red light attached to the top.

“Cameras,” Jonah breathed.

“Well, that’s enough reason for me to go in and take a look,” Ann said, standing from her seat and checking her watch. “We should wait a little longer until it gets dark and then go check it out.”

“We?” Marshall said.

“Yeah, you and I should get inside and we’ll have Diane and Jonah monitor things over the computer to give us the heads up on what’s happening.”

“Woah there, supergirl. So what is the plan, exactly? Sneak into the backyard of an immortal cult society, find a stone used for human sacrifice, and then what?”

“And then this.” Ann walked to an aisle holding a stack of weapons and pulled out a sledgehammer.

Chapter 20

Marshall wasn’t a coward, but not to be even a bit scared under their current situation would be stupid. Ann was showing Jonah how to work the camera and what to do if the feed was disconnected. Marshall and Diane were walking up and down the aisles of the warehouse gathering the supplies they would need in two black backpacks. Marshall was thinking about drinking again. He needed to start carrying a flask with him for situations like this.

“You’re going to be fine. We’ll guide you in and out and then all of this can be behind us,” Diane said.

“Even if we find and destroy the stone table, they’ll still be out there.”

“One battle at a time. If we can destroy the stone that gives them immortality, that’s a start. We can worry about finding them and hunting them down later.”

“What if I don’t want to dedicate my life to hunting people down and stabbing or shooting them through the heart?”

“If we have the ability to stop a group of people who are killing and hurting others, then we are obligated to. If not us, then who?”

Marshall had to admit she had a point.

“Your friend, Jonah. How did you first meet him?”

“I was searching the canyon for clues about Barbara Summers’ death and he was one of the home owners that lived close to the crime scene.”

Diane nodded. “And he can be trusted?”

Marshall was sensing something other than a simple conversation at play. “We’re all on the same side, right? I mean, we all want the same thing. We needed him to tell us what he knows. He told us how to kill them, didn’t he?”

This seemed to be enough for Diane as she agreed with a nod, but Marshall found himself wondering how far Diane trusted Jonah. “Marshall, we will find out what happened to your sister, I promise.”

“How are we going to do that? It’s not like they keep a record of who they sacrificed.”

“They may, and even if they don’t, there might be someone who remembers. Here,” she said, changing the subject. “This should do.” Diane placed a long knife, high-powered glow sticks, and a first aid kit into the two backpacks along with flashlights, rope, and sledgehammers. 

The sledgehammers stuck out of the backpacks awkwardly and Marshall was about to say something about the thick knife Diane had packed but decided against mentioning the blade. Diane already seemed tense with the introduction of a new member to the group. The last thing she needed was Marshall to do more complaining about killing people.

Diane and Marshall made their way back to Jonah and Ann. “Get everything?” Ann asked.

“You’re set,” Diane answered. “Keep in contact the entire time, and if we give the word to pull out, there’s no arguing.”

“Our main objective this trip should just be to locate the stone,” Jonah reminded them. “We can always destroy it later. Keep hidden at all costs and try to avoid having to confront one of them.”

Ann and Marshall nodded grimly as they strapped on their backpacks.

“We’ll have to hike for awhile to reach the spot where the estate used to be. There’s only one road in and out of that area and it’s sure to be watched,” Ann said.

“I’ll drive,” Marshall answered.

It was late afternoon and the sun was almost out of sight as Marshall and Ann drove to the canyon. “Do you think we still get paid for this? Like, are we on the clock right now?”

“What?”

“It was a joke, Marshall, lighten up.”

Marshall could practically feel the adrenaline running though his body. He was on his way to something he might not come out of alive. He was nervous and jumpy, to say the least.

“How are you so calm right now?”

Ann shrugged. “I’ve known about them for years, so I guess I already had time to be scared and worried. I’m done with that now. I just want closure. Here. Pull over here. We’ll have to wait a few more minutes and then hike the rest of the way.”

Marshall pulled over onto a service road and a few yards down, parked the car on the shoulder. They were at the foot of the canyon and Marshall guessed a good three to five miles from the estate they needed to infiltrate. The two sat quietly in the car, each lost in their own thoughts.

Marshall was leaning back in his seat, still gripping the steering wheel. His mind was exploring the dangerous possibilities of the night to come. If it came down to it, could he kill someone? Could he really force a knife through someone’s flesh? There was movement in the rearview mirror. Marshall’s head snapped up and he saw the image of a young girl, a girl that looked strangely like his sister.

Marshall twisted violently in the seat, looking at the dirt road behind him. There was nothing there. “What?” Ann asked, also turning. “Did you see something?”

“No, no. Just my imagination. Sorry. The sun’s about down. Ready?”

“I’ve been waiting for this moment for years,” Ann said.

The two exited Marshall’s car, backpacks tightened securely. Ann handed Marshall an earpiece. “Here. We’ll be in communication with Diane and Jonah the whole time. Don’t worry. This is going to work out. We’ll get in, destroy the stone, and we’ll get out.”

Marshall nodded, knowing that was the plan. But he also knew that plans didn’t always go as they were supposed to.

“Ann, Marshall? This is Diane. Can you hear me?”

“We can hear you,” Ann answered.

“Good. We can see you on the satellite feed. Head straight down your current path a few miles. If you stay on this heading, you’ll avoid any residential areas.”

“Got it,” Ann answered.

The going was tough and only got tougher as the sun’s setting light gave way to the moon’s mediocre visibility. The section of the canyon they were hiking through was full of rolling hills and thick underbrush. Most of the trees and bushes were already dead or dying, making it hard for them to travel quietly. There always seemed to be a crunchy leaf or a dry twig underfoot. The two continued on the course for what seemed like hours.

Ann was in the front using the thick coiled rope they had brought with them to forge a path through the underbrush. Marshall knew she would love to use the rope like a machete and tear a path through the bushes but she refrained. Instead she used the coiled rope sparingly only striking out with her impromptu weapon when she absolutely needed.

They walked in silence. Even the earpieces they both wore were quiet. Marshall was once again lost in thought and struggling with the issue of whether or not he could really kill someone. He was so deep in this age-old question that he ran right into Ann when she stopped dead in her tracks.

“Watch it.”

“Sorry. Why did you stop?”

“Look.”

Marshall followed Ann’s gaze and licked his dry lips. They were at the edge of a large pit. Beyond the pit was a cemetery.

“Diane, Jonah, come in.”

“Yes, we’re here,” Jonah’s voice came back.

“Marshall and I are at the edge of a cemetery. Can you see us on the satellite feed?”

“Yes, the feed is going a bit fuzzy, but we can see you. The cemetery is so small we didn’t see it when we plotted your course. But it’s the fastest and safest way to the estate. Can you make your way through? It doesn’t look like it’s more than a few yards wide.”

It was dark. Too dark to see how wide the cemetery actually was but Ann made up her mind. “We’ll get through.”

Marshall knew that if they were going to go through a creepy cemetery at night the worst thing to do was stand there and stare at the disturbing scene. The longer they debated their course the more time there was for fear and doubt to marinate. “Here,” he said. “I think we can get around this pit and there’s a path that leads through the cemetery, this way to the right.”

Ann followed his lead. Marshall skirted the dark hole that seemed to have no bottom and took one of the flashlights from his backpack. If he had to go through an eerie cemetery then he was going to chance someone seeing his light. The beam cut through the darkness and Marshall focused on one thing, getting through to the other side.

It was clear that no one had bothered to take care of the grounds. Headstones were falling apart at every angle and dead weeds sprouted from the dry ground at will. There wasn’t even a fence to tell where the cemetery actually started and ended. But if Jonah was right, they should get through it soon.

Marshall’s hands were sweaty and every noise made him jump. There was no breeze and that added to the eeriness of the night. Everything was so still, so dead.

“Marshall!”

He heard her scream but there was no time to react, as something hard struck him on the back of the skull. He went down immediately, fighting pain and unconsciousness. He hit the ground and struggled to get up again. His vision was blurry but he could see Ann struggling between two swirling black forms. She kicked one hard, sending the darkness to the ground, and wheeled around on the second. A knife flashed in her hand from somewhere out of her jacket and she drove the blade over and over again into the figure’s chest and heart.

The third stab she buried the large knife so deep in the left side of her enemy’s chest that only the hilt was sticking out. Dark hood still obscuring its face, the shadowy figure let out a slow laugh, clenched the hilt of the knife, and pulled it out without the slightest grunt.

Ann had a wild look in her eyes as she struggled to open the backpack and pull out the sledgehammer, but it was too late. They were on her, pinning her to the ground.

Blood started to drip from the wound on the back of Marshall’s head. He reached a hand back to touch the spot and it came back wet. His earpiece connecting him to Diane and Jonah had fallen out and was now somewhere lost among the cemetery weeds. There was no help coming. Marshall’s vision was going but he managed to struggle to his feet and take a few steps toward Ann and her attackers before he fell again. One of the shadowy figures walked toward him and the last thing Marshall remembered was a boot aimed at his head.