Meadowview Acres (25 page)

Sheriff Buchanon had gone to both funerals and paid his respects to both families. He had seen Eli and Hunter briefly while at Heather’s but was no longer interested in interviewing them. The box theory just didn’t hold up under scrutiny. He believed it was just a very harrowing coincidence for the community of Hallston. It was jolting for such a quiet town to experience the deaths of three citizens.

He had heard from Bill Port that Shasta had been keeping the Jackson’s company. They were still deeply grieving but dealing with their loss. He knew the community would rally around the other two families as well.

Monday had been quiet. Everyone seemed to be getting back to business as usual. A couple of petty thefts and a drunk behind the wheel on Saturday night had been the work of the weekend. With that having been cleaned up, Sheriff Buchanon had decided to leave work a little early and catch up on raking the leaves that had started to litter his front lawn. He didn’t see the note asking him to call Mark Hamilton at the Hallston Daily Journal.

He said his goodbyes and headed for the cruiser. It was another bright, crisp fall day, but still not too cold. He loved the fall weather. He didn’t even mind the winter. Hallston didn’t get really cold through the winter, and, it never snowed, but some of the nights could get pretty chilly.

He stopped at Hardware on Main for some biodegradable lawn bags and a new pair of gloves. He had gotten a nasty cut last year when he had scooped up a mound of leaves only to be sliced by a rusty piece of discarded metal. He had ended up getting a tetanus shot and a couple of stitches.

He left the hardware store and started down Main toward home. Passing by the Gas N Go, he noticed Randy Garner from the mini mart squatting down beside someone who was leaning against a car. He pulled in at the last minute and swung around to park. He noticed, as he got out, that it was one of the teachers from the high school.

“Hey Randy, need some help?” He asked as he approached.

“Hi Sheriff. I think we’re doing a little better now. Ms. Leezil had a little fainting spell.”

The Sheriff looked at the woman on the ground and recognized her as Jeff’s English teacher.
That’s it, Ms. Leezil.

“How’re you feeling, Ms. Leezil?” He asked, noticing her pale complexion and the sweat on her brow. He had seen the same symptoms on someone else recently.

She sat up a little straighter and accepted the water bottle from Randy with a sweet smile. “I’m feeling better, Sheriff. I just don’t know what happened. One second I was about to pump my gas, and the next I just couldn’t keep my footing. I felt so hot, too. It was really unusual.” She took another sip from the bottle.

The sheriff was remembering Bug Hamilton sitting on the fallen tree in the clearing. She looked exactly like that, damp hair clinging to her forehead, ghostly white and weak. “Have you been feeling this way all day?” He asked.

“Oh no, not at all. As a matter of fact, I felt great. I pulled into the station and got out. I said hello to a couple of students and then, boom, down I went! I must’ve looked like a rag doll. I’m sorry if I scared you, Randy. You were so nice to come out and help me.” She started to get her feet under her, and Randy steadied her as she stood.

“No, Ms. Leezil. It was no bother at all. I’m just glad you’re alright.” Randy glanced back to the mini mart. Another car had just pulled up. “I’m sorry, but I’ve got to get back in there. No one’s manning the cash register.”

“I’ll take it from here”, Sheriff Buchanon said, taking her arm.

“Thanks again, Randy!” Julie Leezil called after him. “You’re my hero!”

Randy turned back and smiled. Sheriff Buchanon could see the man blushing.

He took hold of Julie’s elbow and guided her around to the driver’s side door so she could sit down for a minute. She was feeling better, but he thought she would need to rest a bit before driving.

“You said that you said hello to some students?” He had a weird feeling that he knew what she was going to say.

“Yes, Eli and Hunter were gassing up when I pulled in. They were in such a hurry, though. You should have seen them take off. Anyway, that’s when my little episode happened. I think I was falling right as they were driving away.” She dabbed at her forehead with a paper napkin she had retrieved from her glove box.

That was exactly who Don thought she would name. “Do you remember smelling anything unusual, or maybe seeing anything?” He wanted her to say that she had seen a metal box and that there was a sickening smell coming from it but no such luck.

“No, not a thing. They weren’t even here long enough for me to notice anything. They left right when I got out of my car.” She dabbed her forehead again and looked up at him with that sweet smile of hers. “I hate to be a damsel in distress, Sheriff, but would you mind? I didn’t pump my gas, yet.”

He looked at her and realized that she was asking him to do it for her. “Oh, sure, no problem. You just sit there.” He took the card from her and stuck it into the machine at the pump. It accepted the card and told him to select the type and begin pumping.

His mind wandered as he filled Ms. Leezil’s car with gas. What in the world could those boys have to do with all of this? He had been ready to chalk it up to coincidence, but this was getting to be a little too much. The pump kicked off, and he replaced the cap.

She looked much better now, so he felt comfortable letting her drive. “Are you going straight home?” He asked.

“Yes. No more stops for me. And thank you, Sheriff Buchanon. You’ve been such a sweetheart today.” She smiled and closed her door. As he watched her drive away, Sheriff Buchanon tried to remember the last time he had been called a sweetheart.

He looked at his dashboard clock when he got back into his cruiser. School was out for the day. “I think it’s time I sat down and had a little talk with Mr. Andrews and Mr. Massey,” he thought to himself.

He pulled out onto Main Street and made his way toward Meadowview Acres.

CHAPTER 28

Eli, Hunter & Mr. Just

“T
hat’s the last one,” Eli said as they watched the white pickup exit the student parking area. He started the engine and slowly drove down to the now vacant lot. He parked in the fourth row just in case another student were to return to school for some reason.

“Okay, here we go. Are you good with the plan?” Eli was more focused now. They had talked the last half an hour about how to go about getting the relic into the lab without coming into contact with anyone, even Mr. Just.

Hunter was still exhausted. His body was betraying him at a crucial moment. He looked at Eli and said, “I’m ready. I know my part. I stay here with the suitcase while you go in and talk to Mr. Just. When you text me to bring it in, I wait until I see Mr. Just come out of the building and then bring it in.”

“Right,” said Eli. “Hopefully, he’ll have told me what to try, and we can get started right when you come in.”

Eli noticed that Hunter was looking pretty bad. He had known that his friend had been acting like he wasn’t worried for Eli’s sake, and now he was just too tired to continue the farce. Eli felt guilt rise up in him again. He was responsible for getting Hunter involved, too.

“I’m going in. Take it easy and I’ll text you soon.”

Eli got out of the car and went into the school straight to Mr. Just’s classroom. It was empty except for the teacher behind his computer screen. He obviously heard Eli come in because he said, “Just hang tight a sec. I need to finish reading this.”

Eli propped himself against the main lab table and waited. He noticed that there were still beakers of chemicals that had been left on the table from experiments earlier that day. He read the labels – alcohol, boron, potassium chlorate, picric acid and a few other beakers with substances that had no labels. There were safety glasses lying around haphazardly along with rolls of paper towels and notebooks. Eli had never seen Mr. Just’s table so messy before. All of the lab tables were positioned at the back of the room, behind the classroom desks. Mr. Just had the biggest lab table at the front of the others. Eli guessed that he hadn’t had time to clean it up before getting started at the computer.

Mr. Just finished reading and looked up. Sitting back in his chair, he gave Eli a level look and said, “I believe you.” He got up and crossed the room to where Eli stood. “When you two left here earlier, I was a little concerned about your frame of mind. I thought that maybe losing your sister and coming back to school so soon after was making you a little freaked. But when I read the name on the paper that Hunter gave me, I started to wonder. You see, I had read the name of that professor before, as early as this morning.”

Eli was confused. “You know about Monroe?”

“No, not exactly, but, I know more now. This morning I read his name in the Hallston Daily Journal, in the obituaries. Eli, he died yesterday afternoon.” He reached out and steadied the boy. Eli had wobbled a little after hearing the news.

“He’s dead, but, how? Just yesterday morning he talked with the girls. How could he be dead?” Eli was feeling light-headed.

“What girls? Who talked to Professor Monroe?” Mr. Just asked.

Eli sat down in one of the lab chairs and said, “Shasta Port and Bug. Bug Hamilton, she’s the daughter of the editor of the paper. They’re in on it, too. They were trying to help, so they found the Professor and went to talk to him yesterday. Shasta said that they left around lunch time.”

“Well, they must’ve been the last people this dude talked to. The paper says he died yesterday afternoon of natural causes. It also mentioned that he was a blind man. I’m assuming that wasn’t the case before he started researching this rock?” Mr. Just walked back to his printer and picked up a few papers. “According to this, he quit his job to go to a remote island to research the Varuupian Curse.” He handed the papers to Eli.

“Now, listen. I’m a scientist. I usually don’t go in for all that mumbo-jumbo crap, but this curse is well documented. There was another crew that went in before Monroe and lost like half of their people. And read that last page. That was an interview with some native of Shaali who, lucky for him, left the island before the chief’s burial. According to him, curses were commonplace.”

Eli glanced at the papers then put them down on the table beside the beakers. “Look, Mr. Just,” he said. “I don’t need to read these. I’ve seen firsthand what the Rock of Varuupi is capable of. It’s nothing to take lightly. That’s why you can’t be here when we try to dissolve it. We just don’t know how it’ll affect you. Just tell me what to do and then go out to your car. We’ll have you on speaker phone the whole time. That way, we know you’re safe.”

Mr. Just looked at Eli like he was crazy. “No way, Man! There is no way I’m leaving. Now look, I’m not a fool, I know it could get dicey, but I’m not leaving you kids to do it yourselves. We’re going to be working with hydrofluoric acid; I’m not letting you do that unsupervised.” He saw Eli’s expression and understood what he was feeling.

“Eli, I saw Hansen die, remember? I didn’t know it at the time, but he was holding the rock. I was standing right next to it when I tried to give him the Heimlich. It didn’t make me sick. It didn’t seem to affect Clara, either. You may not have realized that I was there that day with everything else going on, but Eli, I’ve already been exposed.”

He was right. Eli hadn’t remembered or connected the fact, but he thought Hunter should have. Hunter was as exhausted as Eli, though, and, things had been getting overlooked lately. Anyway, the revelation solved the problem. Eli was more relieved than he wanted to admit.

“That does make sense,” he told Mr. Just. “If you have already been in contact with it and you don’t remember having any symptoms, I guess it should be alright. Are you sure that you didn’t feel anything that day?”

“Not a twinge, and I’m sure that’ll be the case today, too. Now let’s get going and get this over with. Where is it?” He glanced around the room.

“In my trunk, Hunter’s going to bring it in. Just let me text him.”

While Eli composed and sent the text to Hunter, Mr. Just slid most of the clutter to one side of the lab table. Next, he got out a heavy plastic tray, a hammer and a chisel. Finally, he went to the locked cabinet where all of the chemicals were stored and brought back a small plastic jug filled with clear liquid. He placed it on the table beside the other things.

“Hunter’s coming in with it now,” Eli said as he walked over to Mr. Just and looked over the materials. “Do you really think this will work?”

“It’s a great place to start,” Mr. Just replied. “Hydrofluoric acid is highly corrosive, it can dissolve glass with no problem. That’s why it’s stored in heavy plastic. It’s actually quite coincidental that we need to use this. If you had been awake in class today, you would have heard me explaining oxides. An oxide is a compound that contains at least one oxygen atom along with another element in its chemical formula. Most of the earth’s crust consists of solid oxides, the result of elements being oxidized by the oxygen in air or water. This rock is an oxide; hydrofluoric acid dissolves oxides.”

Eli was about to ask Mr. Just another question, when Hunter appeared at the classroom door, the suitcase on wheels trailed behind him. “Are you sure it’s okay for him to be here?” Hunter asked nodding his head at the teacher.

“He’s already been exposed and didn’t seem to be affected. When Hansen died, remember? I do think that we should watch him really closely while we’re taking it out, just to make sure,” Eli answered.

“Hey, Dudes,” Mr. Just interjected. “I’m here. You don’t have to talk about me like I’m not. And I’m fine. Look.” He walked over to Hunter and took the handle of the suitcase from him. He rolled it over to his desk, then picked it up and laid it on the top. To demonstrate even further, he unzipped the large suitcase and took out the smaller one nestled inside.

The familiar feeling in Hunter’s stomach started again. The bile rose in his throat, and he was clammy. He looked at Eli and could tell that his friend was getting another headache, although he wasn’t sure if Eli’s headaches ever truly went away. Looking at his teacher, Hunter could see no affects whatsoever. Mr. Just got down to the backpack and stopped.