Operation Wolfe Cub: A Chilling Historical Thriller (THE TIME TO TELL Book 1) (26 page)

Other animals quickly came out of the dense forest, walking into the meadow with no real cause for alarm. Harmony was stepping in stride with wild majesty, it seemed—until they all heard something terribly intrusive coming their way. From the front of the Coolidge’s driveway, an abnormal sound echoed through the forest.

Kirpop!

It was a backfire from a car hardly in tune with itself, let alone anything surrounding it. The sound made its way through the cracks of the Coolidge house and right into
Eddie’s sleeping ears buried beneath his covers. Instantly, he sprang up in bed. The sound didn’t come back, so he scratched his head wondering if it was perhaps a nightmare. While still dazed with confusion, he glanced over at Chantain’s empty bed, which probably looked confusing to him too. It hadn’t been slept in.

KirPop! Chug-chug-chug-chug
.

Eddie exhaled, mumbling, “Oh…it’s just my car…
whew
… thought it was the war. Son of a…gotta fix it one of these days.”

It was the Coolidge’s Pribil camper car, all right, or whatever else it was laughingly called. Describing the vehicle was a bit of a “pribiling” problem in its own right. She was a spacey-looking thing, fastened together with pop rivets over a balloon-like shape of aluminum skin. She should have been shiny, but she wasn’t anymore. The blemishes she incurred were a standing testament of time or wear and tear; a far cry from the heyday of her glorious design.

While she sat motionless in the driveway, she chattered and backfired, as if not really wanting to drive away. Even though the inventor designed her to be much better, Eddie’s worn-out version left little more than a mechanic’s money dream of endless repairs.

Her tired exhaust sounded like it was riddled with holes, or maybe even falling off. It let out different kinds of noises only a muffler shop could decipher. Next to, or blended in with, her exhaust noise was the hint of an off-timed cylinder fire. It didn’t matter anyway since the exhaust made sure to cover all other noises. Surely, she was ready for a complete overhaul from the looks of her smoke out the back, which made one wonder where the fire was. Eventually, it cleared away when the motor found its groove of eventually idling on its own.

Amazingly, she was roadworthy—well almost. She was still right out in front of the house, opposite the fallen tree, but the
old half-breed-looking camper car was actually able to move. In a way, it was moving, but not ready for transport. The sorry, silvery-looking thing rocked back and forth on her unusual trio of wheels, hoping that any minute, she would get going or her driver would figure her out, whichever came first.

Clearly, the automobile was under some kind of stress, as worn out as she was. However, her problem was compounded with conflicts involving her operator inside, who was obscured by the fogged-up windows. Gears ground as the motor revved and the exhaust bellowed. She simply couldn’t do anything except sway thoughts into thinking she might move.

The driver of this spacey bubble car, or co-conspirator of problems, joined in with the camper car’s noises in no time. The vehicle wasn’t doing so well, of course, but the driver’s mouth was working just fine. The fair opinion by then was that the vehicle didn’t share her problems; she was creating them all by herself. The question that had become so maddening was, “Who in the world was behind the wheel, making more fuss than the sick car?”

An unladylike temper flared up with the engine, as if their throttles were connected together. After catching a glimpse of blonde hair swirling, trying to clear the fog off the windows, one might make at least some positive identification after that. The fanciful figure moving about through the fogged-up glass in the driver’s seat was indeed Chantain Coolidge. She rolled her window down to keep from further fogging the windows and shouted loudly out the window, “What am I thinking?”

As one of her final acts, she hit the steering wheel twice, with double the anger. “
Grrrrrr-squeeeel!
” She threw a gruesome glare out the window that could have killed a bear. In fact, her invisible vision trail of fire went straight up to the front porch of her house as she spat, “Where is that loser? Can’t he hear that I’m having trouble?”

She turned to look forward through the smudgy, finger-printed windshield. “
Grrruff
… Eddie’s fault. Can’t believe I’m even
in
this-this—God-awful…this-this—rolled up—blimp!” She went on ranting, “I should club some sense into that man…stupid love affair with this thing!”

She snatched up her cigarettes and flipped open the nickel lid of her lighter, stroking up a flame with hardly any effort. Her cigarette was between her lips before the flame as she took a deep puff. Then she spoke through her smoke, “At least my cigarette works.”

Calm is the bomb that blows away madness. Chantain was no different. Suddenly, a stark reminder out of nowhere caused her to lift her hand back up off the top of the gearshift knob to take a look at what was underneath it. Low and behold, it was the Pribil’s funny gear-shift pattern, showing her how to put it in gear.

She nearly burned herself with her cigarette after that. “Oh shit.”

Suddenly, with a whole new approach, she softly ground it into gear. With her and the Pribil working together, they took off. While the Pribil did her part, driving on command, Chantain steered clear of all obstacles. Confidence works in covert ways, and she showed this as she drove. She flicked her ashes out the window more out of a habit than the need. “I knew I’d figured it out without him.”

Pleasant self-assurance took her all the way to the end of the driveway before dumping her off right at the edge of the street where she had to stop for passing traffic. That’s when her problems took over again. She looked both ways before muttering, “God, where’d all these people come from? Who lives out here anyway? Let me out, you jerks.”

Beauty and the beast were on the move. Unfortunately for Chantain, people noticed only the beast. Her gold wristwatch reminded her that she was late and needed to make up some time. Through her flurry of hurry, she drove down to
the first corner, nearly overshooting it. Just then, a couple of cars traveling the other way honked, getting her back on the right side of the road. Her brakes didn’t quite work as well as they should have, but she had an answer for that. She shook her fist out the window.

Their closest neighbors, a couple in their thirties, heard at least some of the commotion from next door. They were several hundred feet down the road and received ample notice of Chantain’s ridiculous rendezvous. They were clearing their driveway from debris left by last night’s storm when here she came, delivering backfires for free.

They kept waving to her as she passed them by, but she never waved back. All she wanted to do was hide her face and mumble as she drove by. “Oh God, it’s Al and Julie Johnson… what kind of timing is that?”

Once she had the chance to get up and go into the next gear, she floored the gas to head down the first big straight stretch, but nothing really happened. All the poor old Pribil had in place of speed was a powerful hoax of smoke.

Back at the last corner, Al shook away his disbelief. Most assuredly, he’d seen the Coolidges with their Pribil exit the neighborhood many times before. Having said that, he still took a break from his yard work to walk out into the middle of the street and watch the oddball car disappear.

While pushing up his thick, black-framed glasses in front of his eyes, he sniffed and wiped his nose. “Well, Julie, looks like Chantain’s off to ’n early start, ain’t she? Wonder why Eddie’s not drivin’?”

Julie wasn’t too far away from him when she waddled her heavy, short frame over to the wheelbarrow, dropping an armful of branches in. “Why don’t you go over and have a talk. You ain’t seen him in a while, you know. See if they’re gonna make it.”

“Make it? You mean their marriage?”

“Yeah, I—I doubt if they are.”

Al started raking again. “Yeah, maybe. I guess so…they ain’t bad neighbors, ‘cept that car-a-theirs.”

Moments later, Eddie hobbled out of his house to stand beneath the covered porch. He stretched his back as he looked around. All he could see was debris and damage from last night’s storm. Most noticeable was the big pine tree. He was reminded about Devil’s as he looked up into the sky just above the surrounding trees, then he held up his hand. Immediately, he noticed that the breeze seemed a little warmer than usual.

Despite chores needing to be done and the unsettledness of the weather, he hobbled further from his house. He soon took himself and his dog to a well-traveled trail, which looked to be nothing more than a hollowed-out passageway in the foliage at the edge of the meadow. Without hesitation, he plunged into it, calling his dog: “Come on, Major. We’re going to the beach alone again, I guess.”

The day seemed right enough, and the walk didn’t appear to be too strenuously far. It was mostly level ground and scenic too with a few millponds along the way. As they picked their path through the more dense part of the trail, one could hear the motion of the ocean getting closer, without really seeing it.

Surprisingly, the waves didn’t sound like any kind of sandy beach for treasure-hunting as one might have expected. Quite the contrary, they sounded terribly destructive, like megatons of water clashing into massive walls of rock and tall cliffs.

The closer they got to the treacherous sounds, Eddie and his dog seemed to settle into a routine of their own. Eddie spoke out to his dog, “Listen, Major…the weather’s at it again, sounds like!”

Neither Eddie nor his dog saw the trail quite the way it actually was, however. Rightfully so, they seemed quite
unaware as they poked along through the residual leftovers of the storm blocking their path. Havoc was hiding well beneath their high steps. Fallen limbs and uproots of the forest stared straight up at them, like a dead militia in some natural warzone. This was no neighborhood where neighbors picked up their spoils, like back in town.

A few animals had even been caught by surprise in last night’s assault. Pieces of their fur and feet barely stuck out among the twisted sticks. Adding to the eeriness were the stacks of older piles left from previous seasons—perhaps more than just previous years.

Eddie wasn’t unusual for not seeing the destruction. If anyone ever did, it was likely someone just like Eddie—scavenging for some little trinket of opportunity.

And so, with invisible blinders on, he trekked right on through the storm’s devastation until they were finally close to where he wanted to go. Soon his destination was within sight through the spotty, blue-gray of sky peeking out past the last few trees.

Port Rock Beach contained some pretty hefty cliffs filled with massive rocks that had been tumbling to their surrender for eons.

The striking impression it shoved into one’s face was not to go there. Nobody did, from the looks of it. It was uninhabited as far as the eye could see. Overall, it was a remote wilderness in which they stood at the northern tip, where the beach didn’t get much better further along. This was where Eddie wanted to go. For the time being, he decided to give his injured leg a break. From his vantage point, he looked down the rocky edges, getting mildly dizzy for a spell.

Just as he began to settle down in the peace and solitude, something caught his eye. Nearly straight down below, about one hundred feet, was a dilapidated fishing boat caught up in the waves and rock. She was wedged there between the
rocks quite helplessly, soon to break up or even disappear completely.

The ocean always did have a habit of dismembering and carrying away the dead before consuming things entirely. Just like the wounded lands and forest behind him, it was another work in progress, except this boat’s life was completely gone, and Eddie was there to witness the final disintegration of her existence. He paid attention this time, unlike in the forest he had passed through.

In a nutshell, her cabin roof was completely gone, and her fractured hull was hanging on by a thread. She was going to break in half. It was just a matter of when. Other parts of her were already scattered about. Some pieces were even tangled in patches of seaweed where a few crabs were looking them over. In fact, the poor, old vessel was ravaged so badly that her color was almost completely stripped away. She looked like the beginnings of driftwood, with faint colors still clinging to blue and white.

Eddie stared intensely at the wreckage as he stepped as close to the edge of the cliff as he could, trying to get a better look. Without too much hesitation, he began to negotiate his way down the most sensible way he could. There were places to step, but his bum leg began to feel the risk. Slightly down a ways, he stood. As he studied the boat for more details, a little piece of ground suddenly slipped away, causing him almost to fall. He began to rethink his predicament a little more cautiously after that. The mild-mannered man was apprised of his situation once more when he looked at his cane and the hand holding it. His grasp had turned tense, showing the white of his knuckles.

He knew he had to do something, so he closed his eyes, summoning a whisper, “Calm down…you can do this.”

In time, the tension in his hand began to relax. Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes again, he realized the gravity of the situation he’d gotten himself into. Impulsive
carelessness was biting him, sinking its strain deep down into the nape of his neck.

His dog barked from above, reminding him of the way back. The only thing the dog could do was dart back and forth while wagging his tail. This offered absolutely no assistance, except perhaps to turn Eddie’s frown into an abstract smile.

Eddie carefully waved. “No—no, don’t come down, Major.
Stay!
”

Major seemed to be a problem at the moment, but he decided to mind. Instead, he hung out his tongue and wagged his tail as wildly as ever.

Eddie continued to study the boat, not wanting to give it up. He tried, but he couldn’t quite make out the name on her stern. All of the wooden letters were missing, except one. It was the first letter—
B
. That much he could see.