Derek stepped into the diner and,
while he was glad to be out of the cold and the storm, his heart sank. He actually felt a pang of
homesickness. That big, rambling house
on Angel Island with its tower and wings, and lots of rooms. Not to mention its grounds. Or its isolation and silence and
serenity. For the first time, Derek
wanted to be there for exactly those reasons.
There, he could find somewhere to hide.
Here, no chance. He was facing
maybe twelve hours under the intense glare of the spotlight named by Mr &
Mrs Burko, he assumed, as Bert.
“Please, God,” he quietly prayed, “if
there is any justice in this world, let them clear the pass quickly.”
Nick had found the heating had been
left on but at a low setting, presumably just enough so the pipes wouldn’t
freeze. He turned it up to a more
comfortable level. Next, he assessed
the situation. Immediate survival was
taken care of – they had shelter, heat, food and liquid. And restrooms. That was a bonus. Any
other person might have halted there and thought nice job. Nick’s experience had taught him to look at
other areas as well. He checked the
interior for the location of all the doors and made sure they were secured. He established the position of the fuse box
plus emergency supplies including the first aid kit. Then, satisfied for the moment, he returned to the large space
where Derek, Rachel and Alex were still thawing out and, after a quick,
sweeping look around, he headed for the door.
The storm was getting worse, not
better. Already the two vehicles were
smothered. Nick opened the rear door of
the 4x4 and peered inside.
“Merli … ” he said, gently shaking her
shoulder. “Merli, c’mon, wake up,
babe.”
Her eyelids drifted open. “Are we home?”
“Not yet. You can’t sleep here, you’ll freeze. C’mon, let me help you.”
Shivering, leaning on him, Merlin got
out. “Where are we?”
“Just short of the mountain pass. It’s blocked. We’re staying here till it’s open. Probably the morning.” He
locked the car door again. “You can
sleep again inside the diner. How you
doing?”
“Okay. Shoulder’s a little stiff, arm’s a little sore but better than it
was. What diner?”
Holding her close, Nick started
back. “The Mountain Pass Café. We popped the lock.”
“Oh .. that diner,” she yawned, seeing the lights ahead.
“You can sleep in a booth. I’ll make sure you’re not disturbed.”
“Thanks, Nicky. How’s Bert?”
“Last I saw, he was still in the
restroom.”
She nodded. “It’s the cold. Does that
to you.” She snuggled closer. “Be kind to him. He’s as stuck here as the rest of us.”
“I’ll try,” Nick responded.
“Try more than usual.” She smiled but, as her face was buried in
his shoulder, he didn’t see. “This
could be just what he needs.”
Nick pushed open the door and a bell
tinkled merrily to announce their arrival.
Rachel, who’d warmed up enough to be able to shed her coat, instantly
hurried forward.
“You’re half frozen. Straight back to sleep for you,” she announced,
releasing Merlin’s hand. “Nick, get my
coat. Peri can use it as a blanket.”
Merlin was escorted to a booth and
settled there with one coat over her and another under her head. Nick paused to watch her for a moment but,
as she’d already sunk back into sleep, he moved on to the next problem.
“Derek, I’m gonna do a check on the
perimeter.”
“Any particular reason?” Derek
frowned.
“There might be more shelter round
back. If there is, I wanna move the
vehicles or, come morning, we’ll have to dig ’em out before we can leave. And we may want to leave in a hurry.”
“Good thinking, Nick. Don’t stay out there too long,” Derek
warned, handing over the keys to the Range Rover.
Nick glanced at the blizzard beyond
the windows. “Be back before you know
it.” He paused. “Is Bert still in the restroom?”
“I’ll check,” Derek said heavily. Legacy Precepts were burdened with many
responsibilities but none was ever as onerous as this.
Alex was checking out the area behind
the counter, normally a no-go zone.
Domestic kitchen equipment was easy.
Diner equipment was, she was learning, a little more complex. It was designed for large quantities so
everything was bigger. The newer, more
modern diners were like tiny manufacturing plants. This one, however, was older and there was more wood than chrome,
more comfort than efficiency. She could
recognize things, but making them work …
“Five coffees, please,” Rachel
requested, taking her place on one of the counter stools.
“Soon as I get an understanding of how
to work this thing, you’ll get your order filled.”
“How tough can it be?” Rachel frowned.
Derek, meanwhile, warily pushed open
the door to the restroom. “Buck
..? Are you in here?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you all right?”
“I am now.”
“You’ve been in here a long time. We were getting concerned,” Derek admitted.
Bert emerged slowly from a
cubicle. “If you hadn’t noticed, I
don’t have a coat. Or even a
jacket. I’ve been getting warm. Getting some feeling back in my hands an’
feet.” He smiled. “I guess this is it till the morning, huh?”
“I think so,” Derek nodded. “Still .. better in here than out there,
yes?”
“For sure.”
At last, something on which we see eye
to eye, Derek reflected. This could be
the corner.
They returned to the diner and went to
the counter where Alex was still scratching her head. “Hot coffee. Anyone would
think I’m trying to split the atom.”
Bert leaned over the counter. “Oh, right.” He got up, walked around the counter to join her and began
turning dials and flicking switches. “I
sometimes have to do this in my job,” he related, opening cupboards. “Here we go. Filter coffee .. in here.
Water .. yeah, plenty. Won’t
boil dry an’ burn. An’ .. hey
presto.” The machine began to hiss,
whir and gently vibrate.
Alex smiled at him. “Thanks, Buck.”
“You’re welcome. But don’t ask me to cook. We always had caterers for that.”
“Well, I have been known to hold the
occasional dinner party,” Rachel remarked, sliding off the stool. “And a griddle is a griddle, no matter how
big it is.”
“Is this a secret desire sneaking to
the surface?” Derek asked mildly.
“Really, you’ve always wanted to be a short order cook?”
“Each to his or her own,” Rachel
replied. “The Luna Foundation has
always been a multi skilled operation.”
“Hmm.
I’ll have to see what today’s special is.”
“It’ll be whatever I find in the
freezer,” she told him archly and went to find the door to the kitchen.
Bert nodded. “So .. Derek. Would you
agree with that statement? A multi
skilled operation?”
“Yes, Buck, I would,” Derek replied.
“In what ways ..?”
Derek sighed. They’d turned the corner .. and had found it
led to a dead end.
*****
“This is different.”
“No .. it really isn’t. It’s actually all the same as it always is.”
“No, no, you’re wrong. It is
different.”
“How?”
“She’s right. How? It’s people. It’s eating.
Drinking. Peeing. They do it all the time.”
“Yeah, I know that. But .. they shut
this place down, didn’t they? Bad
weather they said; we gotta shut so we can get home and not get stuck
here. Turned off the lights. Turned down the heat. Taped that crappy little note in the
window.”
“Uh huh.”
“Cos of the weather.”
“Right,
but I said that already. And, then, this lot turned up. Broke in.
Turned on the lights. Turned up
the heat. Yeah, okay, they left the
crappy little note taped in the window, but the rest is different. They’re
not meant to be here.”
“So what? They’re still gonna eat.
Drink. An’ that one could pee
for his country in the Olympics. He’d
win a gold medal for sure.”
“Didn’t
you listen to a word they said?”
“Well,
yeah. That one said about using the griddle .. an’ that one said about using the coffee machine. I could be way out here but I think that
means they plan to eat an’ drink.”
“They
said they’d be here all night.”
“Really
..?”
“That’s
different.”
“That’s
what I said!”
“What
they gonna do .. all night?”
“Not
eat or pee. Not physically
possible. They could drink coffee. They may sleep a little, later. But we can always wake ’em up, can’t we?”
“What
do people do when they’re stuck someplace?”
“Call
911.”
“Will
you shut up?”
“Make
me.”
“You’re
not helping. What people do when they’re
stuck someplace .. is pass the time by talking.”
“About
what?”
“Does
it matter? I don’t recognize any of those faces, do you?”
“No.”
“Me
neither.”
“So
it won’t be the usual stuff we’ve had to listen to for the last God knows how
many years! I swear, if I hear another
story about trees, fishing, hunting, trucks or wayward girlfriends, I will go
crazy.”
“Hey,
c’mon, the wayward girlfriend stories are very entertaining. ‘Specially when they go into lots of intimate detail.”
“What
I’m saying is we’ve heard it all before, even if there are variations. With a little luck, we could have ourselves
a fun night for once."
“We
deserve a fun night.”
“Oh
yeah. Yeah, we definitely deserve
that.”
“Let’s
get a little closer … ”
*****
Outside,
and working quickly, Nick discovered a sort of garage. Three walls and a sturdy roof. Maybe it was a large wood store, designed
for tree trunks rather than firewood, maybe the diner’s employees used it for
their vehicles. It didn’t matter. It was empty now and it was just what he
needed. Nick was used to being cold and
wet when he had no choice but, when he did have the choice, he much preferred
warm and dry. His boots crunching over
the thickening layer of pristine white, he hurried around the corner of the
diner and went to the first vehicle.
The 4x4 started first time and he grinned quickly. He didn’t know if that was down to the make
and model or if it was because this was an Enforcer vehicle. He was just grateful that it shared Merlin’s
steadfast reliability.
The
first one stored under shelter, Nick trudged back for the Range Rover, praying
that, by the time he got inside and could finally stop thinking about going
outside until the storm let up, Alex or Rachel would have coffee ready for him. He needed something hot to put his hands
around, something hot to start warming him from the inside out. As he drew near to the end of the diner, he
thought he saw a glimmer of light in one darkened window. He paused, frowning, squinting, but it was
gone and it didn’t reappear.
“Imagination,”
he muttered, dismissing it.
“Imagination or it’s the storm making me see things.”
The
Range Rover coughed and wouldn’t start.
Nick swore under his breath and tried again. The engine turned for a long moment then fired and caught. He heaved a wary sigh of relief and eased
the vehicle back, across the parking lot, around the end of the building and
into shelter.
His
work wasn’t quite finished. He spent
ten brisk minutes sweeping as much accumulated snow off the roof and hood of
both the automobiles, then locked them and left them. He did one final complete tour around the perimeter, noting
nothing of concern, and headed inside.
As
he opened the door, a blast of heat washed over him followed immediately by the
aroma of coffee and .. unless his nose was very much mistaken, frying meat and
onions.
The
Luna Foundation was in business.
“Nice
job, Alex,” he congratulated.
Her
reply surprised him. “Oh, it wasn’t
me. It’s Bert you should thank.”
*****
“Hey,
you two!” Rachel called. Derek and Bert
looked around. One seemed irritated by
the interruption, the other appeared relieved.
“If you want this while it’s hot, you’d better get over here. And,”
she continued in a strict voice, “no talking while you eat.”
“Jeez,
who does she think she is? My mother?”
Bert grumbled but Derek wanted to hug Rachel.
They
left the table and went to the other end of the diner where Alex had prepared a
large booth. Nick let Bert slide in first,
then faced the knotty problem of who would sit next to the guy. Alex was feeling charitable because Bert had
known how to give them hot coffee enough to last several hours, so she sat next
to him with a glad heart. Derek and
Rachel took the opposite side and Nick dragged over a chair to sit at the end.
“Aren’t
you gonna wake Peri?” Bert asked.
Nick
glanced up. “Best not to. She get very grouchy if she’s woken too
early.”
“Besides,”
Rachel said with a shrug. “I’ve kept
her some supper. Easy enough to warm it
over in that microwave back there.”
“Buck,
I should apologize,” Derek began.
“Why? What’d you do?”
“I’ve
managed to get you stranded here with us.
We are accustomed to fending for ourselves – ”
“Yeah,
right,” he cut in. “You couldn’t get
the coffee machine working.”
Alex’s
sense of charitable warmth started to cool.
“I would have, given time. I’m
grateful you were here to show me. Next
time, I’ll know.”
“As
I said, we are accustomed to fending for ourselves,” Derek went on, his voice a
little more forceful, “in a wide range of circumstances but it was unfair of us
to bring you along.”
Bert
shook his head. “No. No, Derek, I wanted to come. I wanted to see how you guys do things ..
an’ I have.”
Alex
stiffened. “Did you feel that?”
Nick
had glanced round too. “A cold draft?”
“Yeah.” Alex frowned. “Gone now.”
“Once
I get this down my throat, I’ll check out the place more thoroughly,” Nick
commented. “I won’t be able to relax
until I have.”
“Why?”
Bert asked, sounding puzzled. “Broken
window isn’t our concern. We didn’t
break it.” He grinned slowly. “Oh, I know. Your military background.”
Rachel
saw Nick’s eyes go flat. “It’s all
right, Nick,” she said, giving in to the devil inside. “Buck told us very plainly that he isn’t
scared of you, even after I said not to antagonize you.”
“Really,”
Nick breathed.
“Buck
knows judo,” Derek added in a solemn voice.
“Uh
huh,” Nick murmured.
“And
he’s had shooting lessons,” Rachel concluded.
“That
a fact,” Nick said.
“Yeah,”
Bert replied. “In LA, where I live,
y’know, guns are a fact of life.”
Nick
slowly nodded. “Any good?” It wasn’t a question, it was a raw, blunt
challenge.
Alex
looked around once more. “I think there
must be a broken window. I just felt it
again.”
“So
did I,” Rachel agreed, shivering.
“Buck,
you were saying you have seen us
work,” Derek remarked, steering the conversation back into shallower, safer
waters. The last thing he wanted was
Nick and Bert holding a target competition, either inside the diner or outside
in the freezing parking lot.
“Oh,
yeah.” Bert sounded relieved to be off
the subject of his self defense skills.
“I have learned a lot.”
“Have
you?” Alex inquired then held up a hand.
“I’m sorry, that was a little abrupt.”
“Actually,
Alex, I have learned. I’ve learned this
work isn’t at all what I expected it to be.”
“An’
you’re surprised?” Nick queried.
“You’re used to seeing situations arise, get investigated an’ resolved
in .. what, forty minutes plus credits an’ commercials. Real life doesn’t go like that, in
convenient pieces.” He leaned forward,
pointing with his fork. “Since you
turned up, we’ve been to three locations an’ solved three cases. That’s pretty good going for us. Sometimes, we can be days – ”
“Weeks,”
Alex interrupted.
“
– trying to track down elusive clues.
Some of our cases are still open after years.”
“I
think what Nick is trying to impress upon you,” Derek went on, “is that what
this work requires most is patience.
After all, we are not driving the matter, we are simply attempting to
bring it to an end.”
“And,
sometimes, it doesn’t want to end,” Rachel commented. “An’ then we have to figure out how to .. overcome the
objections.”
Bert
nodded slowly. “So, basically, what
you’re saying is .. I should hang with you guys longer.”
*****
“What
are they talking about?”
“Don’t
talk so loud! An’ keep back! They can feel us.”
“They
think we’re the draft from a broken window.”
“An’
when they go look an’ find there isn’t a broken window ..?”
“I
don’t know! Maybe they’ll think we’re
the air conditioning.”
“That
just has to be your dumbest remark ever.
Air conditioning? In this weather?”
“Will
you two please stop fighting? What are they talking about? What’s this ‘work’ they keep referring to?”
“Solving
cases … Are they cops? Detectives, perhaps.”
“An’
that one – ”
“The
one with the capacity bladder?”
“Yeah. I think he’s an actor. He could be shadowing them, learning how
real detectives do the job.”
“Wow
.. well, that is different. A real life actor.”
“He
said he lives in LA.”
“There
you go then! Proves my point.”
“They
don’t look too happy with the idea of him hanging for a while longer.”
“No,
they surely do not. I think ..
horrified is the word I’d choose.”
“Y’know,
if he’s the kind of actor they’re using in TV shows nowadays, I’m glad we only
ever get to see sports. Jeez .. he’s a
thin stretch of ditchwater, isn’t he? I
can’t see him playing the role of a detective.
He doesn’t have any presence – screen or otherwise.”
“We
could have gotten it all wrong, of course.”
“Uh
uh. Definitely an actor an’ definitely
cops of some kind.”
“I
guess it’s okay for cops to break in here then.”
“Y’see? Proves my point.”
“Has
anyone ever told you that no one likes a smart ass?”
*****
“Buck,
I think I speak for us all when I say that .. you should go back to Los
Angeles,” Derek replied. “Review what
you’ve learned so far, and, then,” and he couldn’t believe he was going to say
this; by the expressions on his colleagues’ faces, neither could they, “if
there is a need .. call us, make a convenient appointment and .. return.”
Bert
laughed quietly. “Do you honestly
believe there will be a convenient
time for me to return?”
There
was an awkward, loaded silence.
“S’what
I figured,” Bert sighed. “I have tried to get close to you guys. I have tried to understand what motivates
you but you keep shutting me out.
Peri’s the only one who gives a damn.”
“Are
you saying we’ve put up barriers?” Rachel inquired mildly.
“Yeah,
I am saying that,” Bert responded.
“Are
you asking why?” Alex wondered.
“I
know why. You don’t want me around.”
“No,
we didn’t,” Derek agreed. “Consider,
you arrive with no warning and expect us to change our entire schedule to fit
with what you want. What we
want is not important. Our lives are on
hold until you say we can resume them.
If we had .. descended on you and done to you what you’ve done to us,
would you want us around?”
“Not only that,” Alex went on,
“but, when we try to help you by answering your questions, you don’t seem to
listen. Maybe we’re not saying the
words you want to hear but it seems to us that .. you’re trying to force us
into stereotypes. A single mother. The token black woman. Rachel and I are more than that, yet .. in
one sentence, you render us less than human beings.”
“Plus
turning us an’ what we do into a TV show, a drama,” Nick added, “takes our
excellent reputation as the best an’ drags it thru the mud. I can understand that people are interested
an’ wanna watch lots of special effects but you’ll take the truth an’ twist it
outta shape, an’ people will believe it cos it’s on TV.”
“A
good researcher,” Rachel concluded, “does more than just ask questions an’
write down the answers. There’s ..
observation. It’s about emotions an’
not just facts. What motivates me is
knowing that what I do makes a difference.
An’ that goes for everyone here, even Peri.”
“Put
all that together,” Derek invited, “and you have the answer to why we didn’t
want you around. However, we are stuck
here tonight with nothing to do. We
could always start over .. if you are prepared to start over as well.”
Bert
sighed and shook his head. “I don’t
think there’s much point, Derek. I
won’t .. see anything now, will I? Not
here. Let me just get thru the night,
get back to San Francisco an’ I’ll leave.
I’ll .. scrub the entire idea. I
never should’ve come.”
He
looked so miserable that they all felt mean.
Then Derek recalled Merlin’s words the day Bert had arrived. Maybe they’d played Bert all wrong from the
start. They had tried to be honest,
within the constraints imposed by the Legacy, and they’d come across as
resistant, flat and wooden. Not real
people at all.
“We
could tell you about some of the cases we’ve worked on,” he said.
“We
could?” Alex queried, her eyes wide.
“Yes! Why not?” Derek declared. “We’ve all seen things we couldn’t explain
at the time.”
Rachel
slowly nodded. “Refresh my memory.”
Derek
paused. He felt he was edging out over
thin ice .. but then he reminded himself that it wouldn’t be the first
time.
“The
time when .. we were called in to investigate that case of the leprechaun. Someone had stolen its pot of gold and it
was running rampant thru the streets of Modesto. You remember, Nick, don’t you?”
“Er
.. yeah,” Nick said carefully. “The
cops called us in, didn’t they?”
“No,
it was Father Mulligan,” Derek corrected, improvising wildly.
“Did
you say .. leprechaun?” Bert queried.
“Nasty
little guy,” Nick responded, loyal to his Precept but wondering where the hell
Derek was going with this. “Real ..
vicious.”
*****
“Hah! Cops, huh?
Since when do cops investigate leprechauns?”
“Maybe
since the day after we died. Nothing
else they’ve said makes me think – ”
“What
are they? The Fairy Patrol?”
“Okay,
maybe, I did get it wrong.”
“Will
you shut up? If nothing else .. isn’t
this entertaining? Isn’t that what we
wanted? I wanna hear how they caught
the leprechaun.”
“Oh,
for crying out loud! You give ’em back
their pot of gold. Everyone knows that.”
“What ..? Leprechauns don’t exist!”
“Then
what were they hunting?”
“Maybe
a little guy .. with green skin as the result of .. some accident. I don’t know, okay?”
“Whaddya
know ..? The smart ass ain’t so smart
after all.”
“I
never said I was.”
“I
am trying to listen to them! You two,
you wanna fight – and why should tonight be any different? – take it out
back. Before you know it .. it’s gonna
be morning again and they will leave.
Normal life will resume. Can we
please enjoy this night of fun first?”
*****
“So
.. what did you do?” Bert asked.
This
was going better than Derek could ever have hoped. “We .. tracked down the thief, and gave the pot of gold back to
the creature, and it disappeared,” he responded.
“Never
to be seen again,” Nick nodded and decided to make his getaway before he could
get sucked into anything else. “I’m
gonna check the layout of this place.”
“Who’s
for dessert?” Rachel inquired, also rising to her feet.
“They
got any ice cream?” Bert wondered.
“They
got just about everything back there.
Ice cream. Pies. Pastries.
Cheesecake. You name it.”
“Small
bowl of ice cream. Vanilla. With chocolate sauce. And sugar sprinkles.”
Rachel
nodded. “Anyone else?”
“I’m
fine, thanks,” Alex replied. Derek
shook his head.
“I’d
just like to point out that .. the tip jar is on the counter,” Rachel
added. “And I’m keeping a tab on how
much we’ve spent. We pay up before we
leave.”
She
headed in the direction of the kitchen.
Bert regarded Derek with narrowed eyes.
“You
said that just to make me feel better, didn’t you?”
“Not
at all.”
“Leprechauns
don’t exist.”
“Neither
do ghosts .. according to you.” Derek
sipped his coffee. “Alex has been
involved in some rather wild adventures too.”
Bert
twisted to look at her. “Such as ..?”
Alex
slowly leaned back. “Well .. let me
think now. There was the time we had to
deal with a poltergeist.”
“Really
..? What was it doing?”
“It
had attached itself to the son of a garage mechanic and, one day, it went to
work with the father. It found it
really liked automobile engines.
Dismantling them, to be exact.”
“Wasn’t
that awkward?” Bert frowned.
“Very. The guys kept doing their job only to come
back from a break to find all their work not only undone but the engines in
pieces all around the shop. This thing
worked really fast.”
“Oh
yes,” Derek breathed. “I remember that
case very well.”
“The
shop’s owner was convinced the guys were doing it deliberately and he
threatened to fire every one of them.
But they called us and .. we suggested educating the poltergeist so it
could help them in their work.”
“Is
it still there?” Bert asked.
“No. No, that kind of activity is short
lived. But they got .. oh, two years’
worth of free labor.”
“Wow. That’s amazing!” Bert said, his eyes
starting to light again. “Do you have
any more stories like that? Although
that wasn’t really very wild, was it?”
Alex
accepted the challenge.
*****
“Poltergeists
… That’s a type of ghost, isn’t it?”
“Uh
huh.”
“So
.. who are these guys? I don’t think
they’re cops.”
“I
think they’re ghost hunters.”
There
was a slight pause.
“And
that one said he won’t see anything. In
fact, according to him, ghosts don’t exist.”
“But
we do. We’re right here.”
“Ooh
.. this is gonna hurt.”
“We
said we deserved a fun night, didn’t we?”
“For
sure.”
“Let’s
go.”
“Y’know,
he’s right. It would make a great TV show.”
*****
Nick
knew the diner was big. The public area
had only one door in from the parking lot but the space beyond was three
quarters of the width of the entire building.
Behind it was a passage which led to the restrooms. There was a door at either end of this
passage. Going to the door on the
right, Nick found another passage, more dimly lit, with more doors, one of
which opened onto a janitorial supply room.
Mops, buckets, floor cleaning supplies, floor buffing machines, toilet
paper, cleaning liquid for tables, cloths, and stuff for cleaning the kitchen
and kitchen equipment. A large
sink. There was a window with
strengthened, painted glass. No other
doors off this room.
He
turned, only to find the door had closed behind him. What was more, the door had locked.
“Not
a problem,” Nick muttered. He bent to
the task of popping the lock .. but it wouldn’t pop. In fact, Nick couldn’t see how the lock was actually
engaged. As far as he could tell, the
door wasn’t locked, it just wouldn’t open.
He
pulled on it, using every bit of strength in his body. It wouldn’t shift. He tried pushing on it as well, but that didn’t work either.
“Bert,
if this is your idea of a fun way to spend the time, I’m not impressed and I’m
not amused,” Nick warned. “C’mon, open
the damned door.”
There
was no answer and Nick pounded a fist on the wood. “Hey! Anyone hear
me? Hey!”
In
a room off the kitchen, Rachel opened the big freezer door and walked
inside. She shivered as she went to the
shelf where all the ice cream was stored.
“Vanilla,
vanilla … Why am I not surprised that
he wants vanilla? Ah, here it is.” She lifted it, grunting slightly with the
weight. “For someone who is .. so LA,
Bert is remarkably conservative. He’s
all image, all a front. Behind it lurks
a very ordinary guy with ordinary fears an’ doubts. Someone so concerned with being part of the herd that his
personality is almost entirely subsumed by the herd mentality. He won’t take any big risks .. an’ the risks
he will take are calculated, an’ designed to inch him closer to the herd
leader.”
Rachel
felt pleased with her analysis. “Nice
job, Rachel,” she smiled, shivering again.
And
then she saw the freezer door had closed.
*****
In
the diner, Alex was enlarging on her newest improvisation to an increasingly
wide eyed Bert. Derek rose to get more
coffee. He had every confidence in Alex
to keep the man entertained. He felt
pleasantly tired and only mildly guilty at the deception. It was obvious that real life wasn’t
dramatic enough or, when it was, it either took too long or was simply too
dangerous for civilians to be exposed to it.
So telling stories was a way around that. And, he reasoned, Bert would only go back to Los Angeles and make
up his own dramatic stories. He’d come
to them for help .. and they were helping him.
Telling
stories – even wildly implausible stories – was a way of passing the time. It was approaching eight thirty and was far
too early to think about sleep.
He
refilled the three mugs and replaced the pot on the hotplate. Then he stiffened, his world turning
monochrome. Rachel. Trapped.
Intense cold.
Instantly,
Derek acted on the vision. He looked
thru to the kitchen and saw the door open but no other sign of her. His mouth suddenly dry with trepidation, he
hurried from the diner thru the door into the passage. Faintly, he could hear Nick’s voice calling
but Nick wasn’t the priority right now.
He turned left, burst thru the door, raced along the passage on the
other side and into the kitchen. From
there it was half a dozen strides to the freezer. He pulled on the door and Rachel stumbled out and into his arms.
“Didn’t
your parents ever tell you not to get shut in a freezer?” he asked.
“I
left the door wide open, Derek. I swear
I did,” Rachel whispered, shivering violently.
“Then
how did it close?”
“I
don’t know.”
“Let’s
get you back into the warm. Then I have
to go find Nick as well.”
“He’s
missing too?” she gasped, her eyes flying open.
“I
can hear him. I think he’s managed to
get shut away just like you did.”
Nick
was pounding steadily on the door when, suddenly, it opened.
“Did
Bert do this?” he demanded.
“Yes,”
Derek said. “He thought he’d teach you
a lesson.”
“We’ll
see about that,” Nick said, his eyes blazing as he stormed back along the
passage, only to meet Derek coming the other way. He halted sharply and swung around but the passage behind, while
dimly lit, was empty.
“Did
you get stuck somewhere?” Derek asked.
“I
think we got problems,” Nick replied quietly.
“Oh? What makes you think that?”
“I
don’t think we’re the only ones here.”
“That’s
ridiculous,” Derek dismissed.
Nick
stared. “Is it? You just opened the door an’ let me
out. Only you’re here. You were behind me just now.”
“You’re
tired,” Derek said. “Imagining things.”
“Yeah,
right.” Nick pushed past him, shaking
his head, and returned to the diner, only to see Derek talking earnestly with
Rachel. He swallowed.
Someone
around here liked to play games. Only
trouble with that was that no one else knew the rules.
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