Sunday, January 20. If they included the day of arrival, this
was Bert’s fourth – and last – day with them.
Each rose to face a gray, miserable dawn yet felt immensely cheered by
the knowledge that, tomorrow, life would go back to normal.
Life hadn’t been that abnormal the last few days but Bert had
added a dangerously fickle element into the mix. Each member of the team knew they could rely on everyone else,
plus they had Merlin as backup. Bert
wasn’t a member. He couldn’t be relied
upon. He wasn’t tried and tested, and
he didn’t deserve to be. Yet he was
going into the field with them. They
had done their best to honor his request for information. They had let him tag along on
investigations. He’d said thank you by
insulting them.
Nick and Merlin rose before everyone
else to take their morning run. Nick
ran in silence, still offended by Bert’s attitude. The man was a thorn under his skin and he didn’t like it. Merlin kept pace with him, glancing at him
every so often. At the halfway point,
they slowed to a jog.
“What is it?” she asked. “Is it because Bert called you a maniac?”
“Top marks for observation,” Nick
muttered sourly.
“You didn’t throw any knife. You’ve too good an aim to be a maniac. The knife wasn’t real. The dog wasn’t real. Why are you insulted by something which
never happened?”
Nick shook his head. “Why are you defending him? Why are you so .. nice to him?”
“Because .. well, I guess it’s because
no one else can be bothered. I mean,
have you sat down an’ really talked with him?
Tried to understand what motivates him, what presses his buttons? Has anyone done that? I have.
I learned .. how to talk with him by listening to him. If you use language he understands, he’s
quite amenable. For instance, Friday at
The Gold Rush, I told him .. he was a minor character with no words to say but
he had to look like he knew what he was doing.
Did he ask you any questions while you worked? Did he interrupt when you were talking to the manager? The first time anyway. No.
He acted the part I’d given him.
Bert doesn’t know what to expect here or in the field. His entire experience of the paranormal is
what he’s seen on TV. If what we do
broadly matches his experience, he’s happy.
If it falls outside, he gets anxious, and he masks it by talking
big. And .. over all that, is an
image. That isn’t the real Bert Burko, Nicky. One day, maybe, you’ll get to meet the man
beneath the mask. Maybe one day soon ..
but I don’t think he’s ready yet. He
has a lot of growing to do and a lot of confidence to gain before he’ll step
outta the shadows an’ into the sunshine.”
She leaned closer and kissed his
cheek. “All I ask is that you make
allowances. If you can’t do that much,
just bite your tongue an’ ignore him as best you can. Tomorrow, he’ll leave.
You can forget he was ever here.”
“Until his TV show hits the screen.”
“If it ever does.”
Nick reluctantly glanced round. “He got that much right – interest in the
paranormal has grown recently. It’s
more likely to make it than not .. unless it’s really bad.”
Merlin eased up the pace a
little. “Would it be so bad if it was
shown?”
“Yes.”
“Why?
You don’t watch drama. You only
watch sport.”
“Others watch drama.”
“Oh, right, an’ every one of them will
recognize that .. Rick Doyle, Army Ranger, was based on Nick Boyle, Navy
SEAL. They’ll all be calling you, will
they, to say hey, I saw you on TV last night.
How many of this nation’s citizens do you know?”
Nick’s jaw muscles jumped. “You don’t get it. To us, this isn’t
drama. It’s real life an’ it’s
dangerous. A TV show based on what we
do, on us .. weakens our
integrity. It’s fiction. Fantasy.
If he’s that serious, he
should go into investigative reporting.
Do a show like .. Sightings. At
least that tries to educate people about what’s really involved in
investigating the paranormal. Anything
created by a writer, even based on real life research, has to be less than the
truth because the truth is often both more boring and more scary than most
people can handle. So, to fill one an’
reduce the other, they twist the truth, add to it, make it something it
isn’t. Dramatic license. An’ then people accept that as the new truth
.. and our reputation suffers as a result.”
He picked up the pace some more. Merlin matched him.
Eventually, Nick glanced sideways at
her. “He isn’t really gonna call a
character Rick Doyle .. is he?”
“I made it up,” she replied. “I think Nick Boyle has a better ring to it anyway,
but he already exists so Bert will have to create another name. I heard him muttering though about the Solar
Institute.” Merlin watched his head
snap round. “Just kidding,” she grinned
and giggled at his expression.
*****
Andrew had been half expecting another
postponement but it hadn’t happened so he prepared hot soup in two Thermos
flasks and hot coffee in two more. He
also included some chocolate bars because they were good for an energy boost
and, in this weather, a lot of energy was used just keeping warm. He packed it all in a hamper and left it by
the front door. Then he cooked a hot,
substantial breakfast and took it to the dining room.
He was just leaving when Alex came
in. “Andrew, I wanted to say thank
you. You didn’t have to do this – work
the weekend. We all appreciate very
much that you did.”
Andrew
hesitated. “Miss Alex, please don’t
misconstrue this .. but there was simply no way I was going to leave you alone
with that man in the house. Anything
might have happened,” he added with a shudder.
“I’d rather be here and suffer with you than be home worrying about what
I’d find on Monday.”
She
smiled. “I understand completely. I’m sure Dr Rayne will confirm this but ..
take the next two days off as compensation.
Mr Burko will be leaving tomorrow and we can cope in your absence.”
“If
you’re sure ..?”
“I
am. And I’ll check it with Derek
too. If he disagrees .. I’ll make him
change his mind.”
“Thank
you,” Andrew accepted, bowing his head slightly. “Enjoy your breakfast .. and good luck.”
Alex
rolled her eyes. She thought about the
trip upstate. Several hours in a car
with Bert, then more than a few hours in some old, falling down house .. with
Bert. Then the trip home again. With Bert.
Her heart began to sink. But
then she recalled that, tomorrow, he was leaving and her heart started to rise
again.
Alex
felt a little mean about her reaction to Bert.
She tried so hard to be understanding and sympathetic and, to a degree,
she could ignore the offensive remarks he’d made his first day there. But he was so persistent. Not with the questions – he was here to do
research and he couldn’t do that without asking questions. It was the offhand remarks which cut so
deep. He just .. opened his mouth and
out they came. No thought behind
them. No considered response. Just a sound byte. Something to fill a gap in the silence. And they hurt because they were so untrue yet she couldn’t
respond to put him straight. She
couldn’t tell him the whole truth, only part.
That meant he was gaining an incorrect impression and, what upset her
even more, his research was flawed.
Am
I overreacting to him? Or am I right to
feel this way? And what exactly do I feel? It’s .. a kind of numb, hollow dread at the idea of spending time
with him. Something’s missing
somewhere. We’re not giving him the
full picture .. and neither is he. Even
so .. I shouldn’t feel pleasure at the idea of him going. That isn’t fair. He can’t help the way he is, but I can help the way I am. I can make more of an effort .. even if it
kills me.
Rachel
came in looking tired and drawn.
“Morning,” she greeted.
“Morning
to you too. Didn’t you sleep well?”
Alex frowned.
“Yeah,
I slept well but I had this dream. No
matter what I tried, I couldn’t wake up.”
“Must
have been bad,” Alex commented.
“Not
really,” Rachel sighed. “It was just ..
very long. I dreamed I was tied up or
tied to a chair. I know I couldn’t
move. And I was being
interrogated. I answered all the
questions but no one believed me.”
“Oh,”
Alex murmured. “I think even I can
guess what’s at the heart of that.”
“Hmm,
me too. Still, today is the last day we
have to .. tolerate this.” Rachel
brightened and gave a small laugh. “It
just shows how resilient we are. Watching
each other’s backs, watching his
back, watching what we do and what we
say, and not letting him watch more than he can cope with .. which is very
little. It’s like a kind of mental
straitjacket.”
“That’s
why I feel so antagonistic,” Alex realized.
“I feel confined. I can’t be
myself. And I won’t be able to until
tomorrow.”
Nick
came in and halted. “Isn’t anyone
eating?”
“Yeah;
we were just discussing our emotional state,” Rachel replied.
“An’
how is it?” Nick inquired, his eyes twinkling.
The
two women looked at each other.
“Fragile,”
Alex said and Rachel nodded in agreement.
“Should
take a run round the island then beat hell outta the punch bag in the gym,”
Nick suggested. “Works wonders.”
Derek
entered last and briskly rubbed his hands together. “Nick, did you put the equipment ready to be loaded?”
“Last
night.”
“And
are we all set to go after breakfast?”
“Sure,”
Alex shrugged. “Except .. Bert isn’t
here yet.”
“Can’t
we sneak out an’ leave him behind?” Nick asked, his voice innocent, his eyes
anything but.
“It’s
a tempting thought but no. It is our
last obligation and, perhaps, the only genuine field trip he will undertake
with us. We get thru today, and
tomorrow we can resume normality.” He
gestured at the counter. “Eat. Carpe diem.”
“His
throat is what I’d like to seize,”
Nick muttered.
“Maybe
you need to go back to the gym for a while,” Rachel grinned.
Merlin
came in to help herself to coffee. “No
Bert?” she frowned.
“Not
seen him,” Nick answered. “If he
doesn’t hustle, we’ll go without him.”
“I’ll
go see what’s keeping him,” Merlin said.
Alex
opened her mouth to say ‘no, please, don’t’ but bit it back. Tomorrow, she thought. Tomorrow.
Jeez .. I sound like the chorus in Annie. It’s only a day away ...
Merlin
took the stairs two at a time and headed into the guest wing. She got to Bert’s door and knocked on it.
“Hey,
you alive in there?” she called.
“Wha
..? What?”
“Bert,
c’mon. Breakfast then we’re
leaving. You wanna be on the bus, you’d
better get a move on.”
She
heard unsteady footsteps then the door opened.
“We’re actually going?”
“Yeah. We actually are.”
“Nothing
really dumb has caused us to cancel?”
Merlin
wondered how to answer that. “We never
cancelled, only put it off. Took a rain
check. And, no, nothing’s come in
overnight. They’re eating breakfast
right now.”
Bert
ran a hand thru his long hair.
“Oh. Okay.” He yawned.
“Give me five.”
“Not
a second longer.”
He
nodded. “You got it.”
“You
okay?” she asked. “You seem a little
down.”
Bert
sighed. “I came here expecting .. I
don’t know, haunted houses. Maybe the
bar fit that, but I didn’t see anything.
I haven’t seen any proper
investigation. So far, it all seems to
be a lot of talk an’ not much action.
An’ today’s my last day. I
haven’t really learned anything.”
“Maybe
this house we’re going to visit will be it.
I hope it is. I want you to
learn what it’s like living here. But,
Bert, even you have to admit you’re not in the right frame of mind yet to learn. C’mon, hustle!” she ordered, turned and hurried away.
“What
does that mean?” he asked, but there
was no one to answer.
*****
As
had recently become the norm, for sanity’s sake they took two vehicles. Derek drove the Range Rover with Alex and
Rachel. Nick drove the 4x4 with Merlin,
Bert, and the equipment. Their
destination was several hours north of Angel Island at the southern end of the
Coastal Range. Nick and Derek had
studied the route, debated it, and finally decided a plan of attack. Down Home was found off a single unpaved
road which wound west to east across the flank of Pine Mountain, four thousand,
four hundred, twenty feet high at its peak.
Two hours and forty five minutes after leaving the island, the two
vehicles were at Ukiah. They didn’t
stop. They headed on north to Calpella,
then took State Highway 20 south east toward Lucerne. Just short of that, they hit the track which led to Down
Home. They arrived at the house three
hours and forty minutes after departing Angel Island. In one vehicle, it had been business as usual. In the other, it had been anything but.
“Why
did we have to drive all this way?” Bert asked. “Isn’t there an airport at Ukiah? We could’ve flown up there.
Cut hours off the journey.”
“You’re
with us,” Nick replied shortly.
“So
..? I’ve seen trees before,
y’know. You didn’t have to do the
scenic route just for me.”
Merlin
twisted round to look back at him.
“Bert, you’re not thinking this thru, are you? The chopper can take five plus the equipment. If you wanted to go by chopper, someone
would’ve had to stay behind because we can’t fit six in there and, while we
have a surplus of vehicles, we only have the one aircraft.”
Bert
hunched his shoulders. “Rachel could’ve
stayed on the island,” he commented.
It
was true. She could have remained
behind. There was no one else involved,
no people at Down Home, not any more.
Yet her presence had to be justified.
“You
wanted to see the team working in the field,” Nick responded. “If we’d left a valuable member of that team
behind, your research wouldn’t be as thorough as it could be.”
“Oh,
yeah. I hadn’t thought of that,” Bert
murmured. “Can we listen to music? Peri says she has some great rock CDs – ”
“No. I need to concentrate,” Nick lied. “I need peace an’ quiet.”
It
was a thinly veiled hint which Bert ignored.
“But
why? I mean, you’re following
them. All you have to do is keep up.”
Merlin
saw Nick’s hands tighten on the wheel.
“I
thought you were in the military,” Bert went on. “Didn’t you learn things like .. navigation? Or were you the kind who sits behind a desk
an’ never does anything remotely exciting?”
Nick’s
knuckles went white.
“I
have the greatest respect for the people who defend our country, who put their
lives on the line each an’ every day, but desk jockeys ..? I can’t see anything very special in that.”
“Bert,”
Merlin said, “Nick saw action. Let’s
leave it at that, huh?”
“Really? You saw action? Wow! Can you tell me some
stories?”
Nick
swallowed hard. “No. I can’t.”
“Can’t
or won’t?”
“Both.”
Merlin
grinned back at Bert. “He’d have to
shoot you.”
“Oh …
I get it.” Bert winked. “Classified stuff, huh? Like Project Blue Book. UFO sightings.”
“How
much farther is it?” Merlin asked in an attempt to divert the conversation into
safer areas. She was glad that Nick was
driving and not a passenger. Clenching
his hands around the wheel meant he couldn’t use them as fists.
“Must
be nearly there,” he muttered. “Thirty,
forty minutes. We’re thru the pass.”
She
put a hand on his thigh. “You’re doing
a great job.”
Nick
glanced sideways and smiled briefly. He
could take a hell of a lot of punishment but he was getting close to losing it.
Up
ahead, Derek, Rachel and Alex were discussing what to do first when they
finally arrived at Down Home.
“Noises,”
Rachel stated. “Doesn’t give us a lot
to go on. We may have to come back.”
“I
was thinking the same,” Derek agreed.
“Today may only be an initial assessment. We might have to set up a temporary camp here. Peri has equipment in storage – tents and so
forth. We could negotiate a loan.”
“I’m
sure she’d agree. But it is cold,” Alex pointed out. “The idea of camping out at this time of
year … ” She shivered.
“And
I would not want to leave monitoring equipment out here unsupervised. It is asking for it to be appropriated.”
“Stolen,
you mean,” Rachel grinned. “I
agree. If we can’t solve this today,
it’ll mean a camping trip, even if we take it in turns. In Gretna, we had that abandoned cabin to
use as a base. I doubt we’ll be so
lucky this time.”
“When
we arrive, Alex, you and I will check out the property. I suppose Bert will want to accompany us but
he must remain outside. Once we have
determined the risk factor, we set up the microphones and recording equipment
in the most .. sensitive areas. Bert
can help with that. I’m sure he has
technical experience of that nature.”
“There’s
a sign!” Rachel pointed.
Indeed
there was. A wooden arrow pointed off
to the left and it bore the words ‘Down Home’ in faded, peeling paint.
The
Range Rover rolled off the track and down into the wide hollow clearing in the
trees. The 4x4 rolled in over the ruts
and holes after it. The natural clearing
had been enlarged and was roughly circular.
An open area for vehicles was in front and a covered wood store was off
to one side of a ramshackle cabin.
Once, it had been a decent home but now it was in a very bad state of
dilapidation. Half the roof was
missing. Not one window had any glass
left in it. The front door was open and
hanging on one hinge, moving slightly in the chill breeze. There were two floors but, with the roof
above gone, one wall upstairs had started to collapse inward.
Rachel
peered forward. “Did anyone think to
bring protective hats?”
“Let’s
go,” Derek said quietly.
In
the 4x4, Bert was peering forward too.
“Whoa … ”
“What
do you think, Bert? Haunted house
material or not?” Merlin asked.
“I’d
prefer something a little bigger, a little more Gothic.”
“Not
known in these woods,” she remarked.
“Be
realistic,” Nick said, recalling Merlin’s words of first thing that morning and
trying to speak language the insufferable Bert could understand. “If all you show are big, Gothic houses,
people are gonna get sick of seeing ’em an’ switch off.”
“Yeah,
that’s true enough. Real life has to
have variety, right?”
“Right,”
Nick agreed. “Wait here till I find out
what Derek plans to do.”
“I
wanna come as well.”
“I
know, but that house clearly isn’t safe.
You’ll get your chance.”
“How
about we unload the gear?” Merlin suggested.
“Okay,
but stay back.”
Nick
got out and jogged to the others who glanced at him sympathetically.
“You
made it then,” Alex commented. “Did
Bert?”
“It
got very close at times,” Nick replied.
“What’s the plan, skipper?”
“Alex
and I will go in to do a first assessment,” Derek replied. “Everyone else wait out here. Give us fifteen minutes. If we’re not back, Nick, you come in to find
us. We may have fallen thru a hole in
the floor.”
“Sure. Peri an’ Bert are unpacking the gear. They won’t come in. She’ll make sure he stays outside.”
Derek
nodded. “Alex ..?”
Together,
they set off. Rachel watched them lever
the door open and vanish inside then she studied the upper floor and shook her
head. The thought of camping here was
too dreary to contemplate. The thought
of solving this mystery in under five hours seemed impossible. There was no one around to question. All they had as clues were noises, and this
address.
Merlin
put the first of the steel cases down and paused to study the house as well.
“You
sense anything?” Rachel inquired softly.
“Nothing
fresh. Nothing’s been here in a while.”
“Maybe
whoever called it in just had an overactive imagination,” Nick said, shoving
his hands in his pockets and hunching his shoulders against the sharp
breeze. “Wind in the trees can sound
pretty unearthly at times.”
“We’re
gonna be here all day?” Bert queried,
arriving as Merlin headed back to the 4x4.
“That’s
the plan,” Nick nodded. “Well, till
nightfall anyway.”
“Doing
what?” Bert shivered in the sweater
Nick had loaned him. “You ask me, we’d
be doing the place a favor if we tore it down.”
“Bert! C’mon, we got chores!” Merlin called.
“Coming!”
“For
once, I have to agree with him,” Rachel remarked quietly. “It’s an eyesore.”
Derek
emerged, ruffling his hair with one gloved hand, and came over to where they
were waiting. “The upstairs is
inaccessible without a ladder because the upper part of the staircase has
fallen. There are four rooms of varying
sizes downstairs – a kitchen, a combination pantry and utility room, a living
area and, I must assume, a dining area.
It’s very dusty and full of spiders’ webs.” He ruffled his hair again.
Alex
came out as well. “I found a door down
to a cellar. The air’s very stale but the steps seem solid enough. It’s cool down there but not freezing. I couldn’t see very much – I’ll need a
flashlight.”
“And
company,” Nick added.
“As
ever, my gallant volunteer,” she smiled.
Bert
was breathing hard as he put down a large metal case. “I think there’s a portable generator in this one,” he grunted as
he eased his back. “That, or you really
did pack the kitchen sink.” He regarded
Derek. “What have you found?”
“Just
the overall layout of the interior. No
clues as yet as to what is making the noises, if anything is. Now we do a visual examination of the
general exterior. Come with me.”
Bert’s
thin shoulders rose proudly and he flashed a smug smile at the others.
“There
goes a brave guy,” Nick remarked.
“Bert?”
Rachel exclaimed, sounding astonished.
“Derek,”
Nick corrected, his voice admiring.
*****
While
Merlin leaned against the Range Rover to keep out of the breeze and the others
moved the equipment nearer to the front door, Derek and Bert, like Holmes
accompanied by the faithful Watson, went around back. They discovered a trail there which vanished into the trees which
may have begun naturally but had been made semi-permanent by years of human
feet walking along it in all seasons.
Even with the undergrowth leaning over, the trail was hard packed, deep
and easy to follow.
At
the end, they found a shed. Just a
simple wood shed – four walls, a sloping roof, and a door. No windows.
“What’s
this?” Bert frowned. “The bathroom?”
“It
could be but I believe it had another function.” Derek heaved open the door and peered inside. He nodded.
“As I thought.”
Bert
squirmed past him. “A still?”
“Far
enough away from prying eyes. Even
farther away from civilization. He made
his own and saved himself a trip into town.”
“Whoa! Nice move!” Bert laughed.
“We’ll
like as not find barrels down in the cellar,” Derek remarked with a smile. “But there’s nothing else here. Let’s get back and then we can set up.”
“An’
break open some of the soup,” Bert suggested.
“I never thought it could ever get this cold in California.”
Derek
led the way back along the trail and they completed their circuit of the cabin. The back door was closed and warped in
place. It wouldn’t open.
“Alex,
what’s your determination of where to place the microphones?” Derek inquired.
She
considered. “We can’t get upstairs but
we have physical weight. Weight isn’t
something a spectral entity usually has trouble with. Nor do they notice if stairs have collapsed. I think one on the stairs, as high up as we
can get it. The kitchen – family
activity happens a lot there. The
living area, likewise. We can use
either the dining area or the utility room as a base.”
“What
about the cellar?” Rachel wondered.
“I
didn’t sense anything coming from down there .. there again, in this
temperature, it’s kinda difficult to register cold spots.”
“Okay,”
Derek nodded. “Let’s do it. Nick, will you set up the recorder?”
“Sure.”
“Bert,
you know about microphones?”
“A
little,” Bert nodded.
“Then
you have a task to do.” Derek watched
Bert’s mouth open. “You are an
associate, yes? Part of .. us.
Then you act as part of us.”
“Okay,”
Bert agreed, not able to argue.
They
moved into the house and got to work.
Nick set up a table in the dining area, put the tape recorder on it and
connected it to the heavy duty battery.
Derek and Bert fixed the microphones in place and, one by one, the leads
came in and were pushed into the jacks and labeled.
“How
does this work?” Bert asked as Nick began to test the installation.
“It
is activated by sound so you must remember to keep your voice low,” Derek
replied. “Movements should be steady,
not sudden .. unless the circumstances dictate otherwise. Rachel, will you position the
thermometers? Alex, if you want to take
a look in the cellar, I’d go now.”
She
and Nick headed out with flashlights.
“Can
I go with Rachel?” Bert asked. “Or
should I check out the cellar?”
“The
cellar isn’t strictly part of the investigation – that’s just curiosity. We have the video camera to set up. Once that’s done, if you feel it necessary,
go down to the cellar,” Derek responded, opening another steel case and
examining the contents.
The
steps down to the cellar were solid and the underground room was warmer than
upstairs. As Alex had said, the air was
stale and had that musty smell of damp earth.
It had been excavated from the rock and the soil – the floor was beaten dirt
with the odd raised piece of shiny, chipped stone. Against one wall was a row of barrels, as Derek suspected there
might be.
Nick
tapped them. Half were empty. The others were full. He leaned closer, sniffing.
“Hooch,”
he grinned as he straightened.
“Mountain moonshine.”
“Rotgut
by any other name,” Alex commented, laughing softly, from the other side of the
cellar. “What’s this ..?”
In
one corner, there was a deep depression.
“Can’t
be a sinkhole, not in rock,” Nick murmured, coming to her side and crouching
down. “It’s .. discolored around the
edges.”
Alex
frowned. “I think Peri should take a
look at it. Just to be on the safe
side.”
“Okay.”
There
was nothing else to discover. Nick wondered
how anyone could have gotten the barrels down there but that was a mystery
unconnected to the case. They climbed
the stairs again.
“Okay,
well, we’re all set up,” Bert said, keeping his voice low and his movements
steady. “What happens next?”
“We
wait,” Derek replied.
*****
They
took it in turns to wait in the house.
When the cold got too much, they waited in the Range Rover. They drank the coffee and the soup, and
wished they’d brought more.
Nick
remained in the house the whole time, monitoring the monitoring equipment. Merlin kept him company every so often, then
vanished outside to walk, explore and warm up.
Nick was content to sit in some corner out of the draft, huddled in his
jacket, enjoying the silence of the run-down house and waiting for something to
go down. He had years of experience of
doing exactly that.
Bert
often hovered just inside the front door, willing something to happen. He was very aware that the clock was ticking
and, while this was authentic fieldwork, God it was boring. He began to wonder if a TV show using these
characters as role models would ever be put on film, let alone
transmitted. If he could just come up
with a blinding idea for a pilot, he felt it stood a chance. It could even run for a few seasons. So far, what he’d seen these people do
amounted to extremely little and all of it was dull. He wondered how they could stand it. He wondered what pleasure they got from it. He wondered why he was asking himself these
questions when he could be asking them.
If nothing else, it would pass the time. Resolutely, he pulled his notebook from his pocket and turned to
the Range Rover.
An
hour later, it was nearly three in the afternoon. Alex had been the target and she was starting to look pained at
the continuing interrogation. She
reminded herself that a good researcher asked a lot of questions, often very
similar ones to elicit slightly different responses on each occasion. A problem or a project was never flat. It was at least two dimensional and often
three. Therefore, three slightly
different questions on the same thing provided three different ways of looking
at the one facet. Build up enough
facets, you got a diamond. But Bert
didn’t do that. He just kept plugging
away at the same small area, asking the same question over and over again
because he didn’t understand the answer.
He never would, no matter how many times Alex paraphrased, because he
didn’t listen.
“Buck,
why don’t you let me take over for a while?” Rachel invited, wanting to take
her tongue and cut it from her mouth.
Bert
glanced at her rather suspiciously.
“Why?”
“Different
person,” she shrugged, “different viewpoint.”
Alex
took quick advantage of the interruption.
“I’ll go see how Nick’s doing,” she muttered and made good her
escape. Rachel braced herself as Bert
drew in a deep breath.
Nick
was taking a rare break to stretch his legs.
Merlin was around somewhere.
Derek was inside, keeping watch.
“How’s
it going?” Nick inquired.
“I
was going to ask you the same,” she smiled.
“Quiet
as a tomb in there.” He glanced back at
the house. “It could be these noises,
if they are genuine, only happen at night.”
“In
which case .. we’re wasting our time,” Alex commented. “We may have to come back. In the spring.”
“It
isn’t that cold,” Nick remarked. “Just
a little brisk an’ sharp.”
“What
did Peri say?” Alex asked next.
“What
about?”
“That
dip in the cellar floor.”
Nick
blinked. “I thought you were gonna talk
to her.”
“I
thought you … Never mind.
Where is she? I’ll ask her now.”
“Around
back, I think. Alex, have you thought
maybe these noises are all someone’s imagination? Someone, say, out in the woods, finding this place, finding the
hooch in the cellar … That stuff could
do more than rot your gut an’ hallucinations don’t have to be just visual.”
She
nodded thoughtfully. “Good theory. I’ll go down and measure the levels in those
barrels. Next time we’re out here, I'll
check ’em again. You may yet be right.”
Alex
found Merlin poking around in the shed with the still.
“I
didn’t think people did this kinda thing in California. I thought it was all legit. Napa Valley, an’ all that. This thing .. it’s more South East. Great
Smoky Mountains.”
“Napa
Valley is wine,” Alex corrected.
“People will do whatever they can get away with when they believe people
aren’t looking. Talking of which, Peri,
can you take a look in the cellar?”
“Sure. Something catch your eye down there?”
“Beyond
the barrels of hooch brewed out here?
Yeah.”
The
two women wandered back to the house.
Nick was back inside again, standing with Derek. Rachel was heading determinedly their way as
well. Bert, still talking, trotted
along beside her.
As
Merlin went thru to the utility room with Alex, Rachel came in, gesturing
peremptorily to Bert to shut up. Merlin
put a hand on the door to the cellar and stiffened.
“Whatever
you do, keep Bert up here,” she whispered.
“Why?”
Alex asked. And then she heard the
noise.
The
recorder switched on. Derek tensed,
looked at Nick with a meaningful expression and Nick’s face crumpled. Nursemaid.
Again.
“What
the hell was that?” Bert asked. His
voice was soft, not because he’d remembered to keep it down but because he was
paralyzed with surprise.
Derek
walked out, Rachel hurrying along behind him.
“Where
are they going?”
“Check
the mikes,” Nick lied. “Could be a
false reading.”
“False?” Bert echoed, his jaw
sagging. “Are you deaf?”
Alex
was at the cellar door, staring down into the depths with horrified eyes. Derek pushed past her and began to
descend. Rachel peered around the
doorframe and Derek’s bulk.
“My
God,” she breathed.
It
was a demon, and it was drunk on hooch.
Merlin was small and slight beside it but she was battling gamely to
send it back where it belonged so it could sleep off its hangover. Derek eased farther down the steps. Alex and Rachel crept after him, riveted by
the combat taking place in such a confined space and which they could see by
the light of the flashes.
Nick
was fretting, anxious to be down there too yet banned from going. He hated obeying orders like this.
“I’m
going down there,” Bert announced.
Nick
went to grab at his sleeve but Bert had more wiry speed than Nick had
anticipated.
“Oh
.. shit,” he muttered and tore after him.
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