catch coons and possums and such when they came for a drink. Mrs. Clevenger had been coming out regularly and springing the traps with sticks. Jack wondered what the trapper would do if he ever caught the old lady at it. What ever it was, he?d have to get past her nameless dog, and that wouldn?t be easy.
Eventually they reached a burned-out area deep in the Pines. They knew the place well. Maybe too well. Here was where they?d dug up the little pyramid and the corpse.
After they?d leaned their bikes against some trees, Jack stood in the shade and pulled out their aerial photo of the area. Judging by the position of the midmorning sun, they?d been following the fire trail eastward. The mound lay to the right of the trail, which meant south. The strange-looking thing he?d spotted on the photo was to the right of the mound, which meant farther south.
He pointed to the burned-out area. “This way.”
As they walked a weaving course around the blackened tree trunks, Jack saw green branchlets poking through the charred bark. Hard to kill these pines. Fires were common in the Barrens during the summer and fall, mostly the fault of campers and lightning. With all the recent rain, he doubted they?d see any fires at all this season.
“Think anything?s left in there?” Jack said, pointing to the ruins of the mound as they passed.
Weezy shook her head. “Look at it. It?s not even a mound anymore.”
She had a point. The government men had left little more than a twisty-turny trench, now filled with stagnant water.
The pines thickened past the burned-out area, slowing their progress.
“This better be worth it,” Eddie said.
Jack had known it was only a matter of time before he?d start complaining. He was kind of surprised he?d held off this long.
“Shouldn?t be too much farther now. According to the photo, we should hit a clearing any …”
He stopped and stared as he spotted an open area dead ahead.
“… minute.”
The clearing hadn?t surprised him, but what stood in its center stopped him cold.
Weezy pushed past him, then stopped, saying “Oh my-god!” over and over.
Jack couldn?t speak. The Pines were full of secrets and surprises, but this … this was over the top. Way over.
3
“What
“Some sort of … pyramid.”
At maybe fifteen feet tall, it had nothing height-wise on the ones in Egypt, but
this was definitely a pyramid, and unlike any Jack had seen or heard of. He wondered if anyone alive today had ever laid eyes on it. Weezy finally stopped saying, “Oh my god!” and the three of them approached the pyramid. The closer they got, the odder it became.
As Jack neared he noticed it wasn?t solid. Huge, elongated triangular stones stood in a circle, their bases buried in the sandy soil with their pointed ends jutting skyward and leaning toward each other.
“Look like Godzilla pizza slices,” Eddie said.
A typical Eddie comment. If he wasn?t thinking about video games, he was thinking about food.
But his comment hit the mark: the structure did resemble half a dozen giant petrified pizza slices, crusts down and arranged in a circle.
A three-foot-high wall of headstone like rectangular slabs ringed the whole thing.
They marched around it in silence. One of the triangular megaliths was broken halfway up, but the undamaged points of the remaining five met and leaned against each other at the pyramid?s apex.
“Notice, Weez? Six sides … just like our little pyramid.”
The gleaming black artifact they?d found in the mound back there would have fit inside a softball. It too had six sides—seven if you counted the base.
Weezy nodded but said nothing. She seemed in a daze, incapable of speech or even taking her eyes off the pyramid. Jack thought he knew how she felt: She?d lost a little piece of the Secret History, but found something much bigger. He felt it too. The strangeness, the ancient, alien feel to the structure.
They came to a broken fence stone. Without a word, Weezy stepped over it and entered the circle. Jack followed but Eddie hung back.
Jack turned to look at him. “Coming?”
Eddie looked uncomfortable. “This whole place is majorly creepacious.”
Jack agreed, but he put on a smile. “Don?t worry. Weezy will protect you.”
Eddie rolled his eyes and stepped over the broken slab. “I should know better by now to go anywhere with you guys. You find dead bodies, you get me locked up in a police car and chased by the cops, but do I learn? Nooooo.”
“Look, Jack.”
Weezy was standing by one of the leaning megaliths, rubbing her hand over the surface. Her expression was triumphant, beaming vindication. He imagined this was what Percival looked like
when he glimpsed the Holy Grail.
“What have you got?” he said, approaching.
“Look familiar?”
With a trembling finger she traced a circle around a faint indentation in the weather-smoothed surface of the stone. Jack squinted until he could make out the full outline, then he gasped.
Recognition was like a punch in the chest.
“That?s … that was on our pyramid!”
She nodded and jumped to the next where she again ran her hands over the surface. She seemed about to explode.
“So was this one.”
Then to the next stone.
Her voice shook. “This one too.”
They were connected. No question. “So …” he managed, swallowing hard as he stepped back for a longer look. “Is this based on our little pyramid, or was ours based on this?”
She shrugged. “Who can say? No way they?re not connected. I mean, they?re too much alike.
But our pyramid wasn?t made of stone.”
Right. They?d given it to Professor Nakamura who?d had it analyzed at the University of Pennsylvania. No one there could say what it was made of, but it sure hadn?t been stone. All they?d been able to say was that it was many thousands of years old—and then it had
disappeared.
Jack stepped up to one of the megaliths and felt its surface. “Granite?”
Weezy moved up next to him. “That?s what it feels like to me. Except …”
