Empire Of Salt (25 page)

"Wow," was all he could say.

"Feels like the Twilight Zone, doesn't it?" Veronica asked.

Metzger nodded. "Everywhere I turn in this place, it seems that things are just a little bit off."

"Sometimes a lot," Derrick said.

"Sometimes a lot," Metzger agreed. He turned to Natasha. "But we're back to square one. We don't have one of the creatures to examine."

"Actually, we might," Veronica said, glancing at Derrick. "We think we might have found an abandoned trailer with one inside."

"You think? You didn't check?"

"We're not soldiers. Are you kidding me?" Veronica shook her head.

"What did you see, Derrick?" Metzger asked.

"I didn't really see anything. I just felt it. I kind of, I don't know, knew it was there." Derrick glanced at the soldier hopefully. "Do you know what I mean?"

Metzger knew exactly what the boy meant. His own sixth sense had saved him on countless occasions during building clearing in Baghdad.

"It's getting late," Natasha said. "Let's go back to that trailer tomorrow and check it out in the light."

Veronica and Derrick nodded, clearly liking the idea.

Metzger would have rather gone tonight. He had to keep reminding himself that the others weren't soldiers.

They headed back towards Natasha's trailer. Truth be told, he was exhausted. He'd love to get a good night's sleep. He hadn't had one in more than two years.

D
errick and Natasha brought Metzger home around eleven o'clock. Auntie Lin had taken a liking to the young man, but wasn't sure if it was a good idea to let him into the house while everyone was sleeping. Luckily, even with the storm blowing up the Sea of Cortez and having not yet reached Puerto Peñasco, they had twelve hours of good weather left before it hit. So Auntie Lin's solution was to have a camp out of sorts.

Everyone took advantage of the cool air and slept on the roof in lounge chairs. Auntie Lin watched over them, sleeping in a lounge chair at the top of the stairs to the roof deck, a Sudoku book perched in her sleeping, gnarled hands.

The next morning, Natasha was the first to wake. She, Derrick, Veronica, and Metzger had talked long into the night about what they were going to do. First they were going to talk to the Mad Scientist and get him to explain about the green hand he had stashed in his laboratory. They decided to do this instead of investigating the place where Derrick had found a monster, hoping that they could use what they learned from the Mad Scientist to their benefit.

An hour later everyone had eaten breakfast and taken a shower. Veronica went home to change and promised to meet them at the Mad Scientist's.

The day dawned hot, like Hell's oven had been turned up and the door left open. The superheated air nearly took their breath away. Derrick, Natasha and Metzger headed to the restaurant first, moving slowly. Where before they'd cut through yards, today they were happy to trudge down the street, heads down, hands in their pockets, their attention on the road before them.

The restaurant was closed. The front window had been covered with plywood. The door was locked and no lights were on inside.

"Better hurry and get inside." Carrie Loughnane smoked a cigarette as she leaned against the wall beneath the awning next door at the Laundromat. Her windows had yet to be covered, and by the looks of things, she didn't plan on doing it herself. She wore red Capri pants and tank top, making her look like a red pear. "I said hurry, before you melt." Carrie held open the door.

All three hurried in and were suddenly soothed by cool air as the twin swamp coolers on the roof fired like turbo jet engines straight into the entryway. It would have been a peaceful paradise had Carrie's seven kids not been running around playing Cowboys and Indians.

Her children ranged from four to eleven years old. Carrie had been continually pregnant for seven years. Once a vivacious cheerleader from a Costa Mesa high school, she'd traded community college for crack cocaine and had spent the next seven years drifting through a fog of sex, crack, and rock and roll.

"Is this the soldier I heard about last night?" Carrie asked, looking Metzger up and down. She'd killed her cigarette in the ashtray outside, but the acrid smell of smoke still lingered on her clothes, mingling with her heavy, clove perfume.

"Metzger, ma'am." He held out his hand.

"What a gentleman," she said, winking at Natasha as she gripped his hand.

Natasha didn't find it funny at all. She felt a bite of jealousy as they shook hands. Carrie was in her early thirties, and had lost little of her former beauty.

There was a shrill scream of agony. One of the kids had stuffed another halfway into a washing machine.

"Die, space toad!"

Carrie shoved her hands onto her hips. "Five, let seven go. What the hell are you thinking?"

The kids scurried off to do something out of sight.

Carrie turned and shook her head. "Kids."

Metzger looked at Natasha and mouthed the words, "Seven? Five?"

Carrie saw it and laughed. "I know. It's stupid. Sometimes I forget things, like their names." She thumped the side of her head. "But I remember numbers really well, so I give them numbers. One is the oldest and seven is the youngest. Sometimes I sort of feel like Charlie Chan."

Metzger nodded slowly, but by look on his face he thought it was one of the strangest things he'd ever heard.

"Did you hear about the storm?" Derrick asked.

Carrie turned her attention to him and shook her head.

"They said it might be the worst in twenty years if it clears Puerto Peñasco. We're supposed to batten down the hatches."

"Do you even know what that means?" Natasha asked. "How do you batten down something?"

Derrick glanced at Metzger, clearly embarrassed to be called out like that by his sister.

Metzger came to his rescue. "Easy now, Natasha. It's a pirate thing. We should all know how to batten things down. Ain't that right, Dread Pirate Derrick?"

Derrick grinned. "Yarr!"

"Are you going to need help with the windows?" Natasha asked.

"Windows?" Carrie said.

"Yeah. For the storm that's coming," Metzger added.

"Storm? What storm?"

Derrick was about to open his mouth, but Natasha elbowed him in the ribs, then pointed out on the street. Veronica was trudging through the heat heading towards the locked restaurant.

Natasha grabbed Metzger by the elbow and began pushing him towards the door. "Listen, we gotta go, but if you need some help, come and ask us, okay?"

Carrie stared at Natasha for a moment, then her eyes seemed to clear. "Okay. I will." Then she turned and hollered for children one, three and four.

A moment later, Natasha and the others were out the door and calling for Veronica, who was already past the Laundromat. "Hey girl!"

Veronica turned sluggishly. "Ugh," she said. "I feel like a zombie. It's so damned hot."

A sluggish breeze had come up while they were inside, bringing the smell of hot, putrefied fish with each gust of air.

They turned back the way Veronica had come and headed up Avenue A.

"Is she okay?" Derrick asked. "She acted kind of... I don't know."

"You mean Carrie?" Veronica nodded. "She's a winner for sure. God knows where she goes when she goes, but she goes somewhere."

"Lost brain cells. They say that when you lose them, they never grow back," Metzger said.

"Damn. Then she has a lot of empty space to traverse inside that head of hers." Natasha frowned. "It must be hard."

Veronica nodded. "It is. She knows she's messed up, but not really how bad. We're a close community. You know she doesn't charge anyone to use the Laundromat, right?"

All three looked at her.

"I had no idea," Natasha said.

"Yeah. She said she found the place, so she doesn't feel comfortable charging people. That would be like stealing, she says."

"So how does she eat and feed the kids?" Metzger asked.

"She trades. She cleans houses too, sort of."

All four of them laughed at the idea of Carrie and kids one through seven descending upon a dirty trailer. Then they let the laughter die as they realized how hopeless the woman's life would be if it weren't for the people of Bombay Beach. It made Natasha realize even more how unusual the town was. She'd hated it horribly at first: the town was literally rotting away on a sea that no one could swim in. But she was coming to understand that Bombay Beach had far more of a sense of community than any where else she'd lived.

"It's like the Army, sort of. We take care of our own. It's like a big family," Metzger said.

Natasha watched him as they walked. He'd held breakfast down. That was a good sign.

They made the turn down Third Street, and found themselves in front of the Mad Scientist's set of trailers. The main trailer on the left was light blue and white, and cleaner than most. The weeds in front had been clipped to within an inch of the sandy soil. A lime green garden gnome had a Star Trek uniform painted expertly over its body. To the right and set back was the other trailer, mostly submerged: the laboratory.

"Which one?" Derrick asked.

Veronica pointed to the red light beside the door on the sunken trailer. "That one."

"Do we just walk right in?" Metzger asked.

Veronica shrugged. "We should probably knock first." To Derrick she asked, "Do you have the book?"

He nodded as he pulled it out. He held it carefully as though it were fragile.

"Then let's go," Metzger said. He walked towards the trailer, but before he could descend the stairs to the door, the door opened.

"Go away," came the thin voice of the Mad Scientist.

"It's Natasha, Dr. Gudgel. I brought some friends with me. We need to talk." She glanced at Veronica and Metzger for support. They both nodded grimly.

"I don't have time. Sorry."

He pulled the door shut, but Metzger pounded on it hard.

"Leave me alone."

"We can't," Natasha said. "We need your help."

"I can't help you."

"You can't or you won't?" Metzger countered.

Gudgel flung open the door. "Listen, just leave this place. You shouldn't be here now. It's just too..." He let his voice trail off, his eyes full of worry.

"Dangerous? Is that what you were gonna say, Mister?"

The Mad Scientist tried to close the door again, but Metzger jammed his foot into the gap. They struggled for a moment before it became obvious that the soldier was the stronger of the two. The Mad Scientist just turned and shuffled back into the laboratory, leaving the door open behind him.

They followed him in. Derrick was last. He closed and locked the door behind them.

The inside of the trailer was nothing like any of the others. The entire place had been gutted, leaving one long rectangular space. The trailer's walls were covered with schematics and charts, most of which were indecipherable. Natasha recognized a map of California and the Salton Sea, but not much else. Tables lined both walls. All sorts of instruments covered every available surface, including several telescopes and enough beakers and test tubes to populate a high school chemistry lab. A smell lingered in the air, a combination of unwashed clothes and a sharp, eye-watering chemical.