she was pointing with her light beam to something on the floor. He had to stoop low to see what it was, and when he saw it, he gasped. It was a boot; the same type worn by every Enviro-Kleen entry team member, and in remarkably pristine condition. Closer examination revealed that it was still connected to the leg of a moon suit. He followed the lines along the floor with his light, over a bend that had to be a knee joint, past a waistline, and finally up to the hood. He touched nothing, and closed his eyes as he shone his light through the blackened Plexiglas facepiece. When he opened them again, he felt relieved to see that the fire had rendered the facepiece opaque. Still, in his mind’s eye, he could swear he saw the empty eye sockets of the corpse’s skull staring back at him.
Jake looked away. But for somebody’s poor aim, or perhaps his own incredible luck, that could have been him. Or Carolyn. He swallowed hard to sink the wave of nausea before it could rise to his throat.
“That’s one,” he said to himself aloud, even though no one could hear. Hearing a voice reassured him, even if it was his own. “Now, where’s the original?” The temptation to recover his friends’ remains was overwhelming, but he reminded himself that such was not their mission here.
The remains of two other Enviro-Kleen workers-the rest of Entry Bravo-lay within a couple of feet of the first. Jake took some measure of comfort from their positions in death. The fact that their suits remained melted here and there, but largely intact, told him that they hadn’t burned to death (his most horrid of horrid nightmares), and the fact that they lay sprawled rather than curled up told him that they had not suffered too greatly. Even as he thought these things, he knew that his conclusions were flimsy, but he chose to believe them, anyway.
Nick was the one who found what they came looking for. Six feet, at the most, beyond the furthest moon- suit-shrouded corpse lay a scattered pile of smaller bones-the bones of a child, it appeared. The meat was long gone off this body, and without any protective covering, it was barely identifiable for what it was. But there was no mistaking the vertebral structures of the spine or the looping shape of the few remaining ribs.
Nick’s wild gesticulations with his flashlight drew Jake over toward him, and as soon as he saw the bones, he knew that their journey had ended. Before he could motion for Carolyn, she was there, body bag in hand.
Not a religious man by nature, Jake offered up a quick prayer of apology, begging forgiveness for the desecration he was about to perform. Blessing himself with the sign of the cross-something he hadn’t done in more years than he could remember-he set about the grisly business of loading a small child into a rubber bag.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The man stalking them was definitely a cop. Travis got a glimpse of the hat and the badge as he stepped out into a clearing. From the way the cop was moving, he hadn’t seen them yet, but he sure seemed to know where he was going.
As panic grew in his belly, Travis looked over his shoulder to see if the grown-ups were on their way back yet. It had been a lot longer than five minutes.
Shit! What do I do?
His father’s last words burned in his brain: “Your job is to wait out here and watch for anything unusual.” He realized now that it was just a bullshit job, because he was up to his eyeballs in unusual, but he had no way to warn anybody.
Dammit!
The cop was getting closer with every step, and Travis’s sitting there with his forehead scrunched in confusion wasn’t helping anything. He had to get word to them. Maybe he could shout.
Good idea, idiot, Travis chastised himself. Why don’t you just stand up and wave a flag, too?
Okay, shouting was a stupid idea. At least from here. Maybe if he got closer… close enough to see what was going on, anyway.
He rolled out of his current spot, staying low to keep from being seen on the ridgeline, and then he slid on his butt down the other side of the embankment. On the far side, he found himself on another road, just like the one where they were parked, and facing another magazine, identical to the one he’d just climbed. Running now, he dashed around the next mound, rather than over it, and he found himself suddenly in the midst of the moonscape. Nothing lived here. No grass grew; no plants. Even the dirt seemed dead. Across another road, maybe fifty yards away, stood the open maw of the burned-out magazine. If he used his imagination, he thought he could see movement inside, but no people.
He considered yelling again, but it was still too far away. C’mon, Trav, think…
He needed to move closer. He could think all day, and he’d still be too far away to yell without being heard by the cop. But what about the dust? Jesus, how many times did they have to say it? The dust here would kill him if he breathed it. At least that’s what they thought. But he was breathing it now, wasn’t he? And he was still okay. Maybe the stuff had all worn off or blown away, like Nick said might be the case. In any event, he could always hold his breath.
He glanced nervously over his shoulder again, thinking he heard the squawk of the radio. Okay, he’d hold his breath. If he got in and got out quickly, it wouldn’t be a problem. What other choice did he have?
Pausing there at the margin where green and red and orange turned to flat black, he took in five or six deep breaths, hyperventilating himself the way he saw swimmers do it on television before a big race. He could do this.
On your mark… get set…
Who the hell would bring a car out here? As Sherman Quill drew closer, he saw not only the car-a Cadillac, no less-but a bunch of boxes and equipment strewn all about. It still made no sense to him, but one thing was clear: whatever was going on, and whoever had done this, they were still here, unless they’d left on foot.
Maybe that FBI lady had been right. Maybe the Donovan gang had returned to finish what they’d started. In an era where crooks were stupid enough to rob banks using notes written on the backs of their own deposit slips, as had happened in Little Rock just a few weeks before, Sherman had come to put no limits on the extent of stupidity he could expect from a lawbreaker. No matter how clever their crime, sooner or later, it seemed, it was always something truly stupid that ultimately brought the perpetrator down. Like returning to the scene of the crime.
Resting his hand on the grip of his. 38 Police Special, Sherman approached the Cadillac cautiously, peering in the windows and scanning the trees for any sign of movement. “Well, I will be damned,” he muttered, lifting his portable radio out of his belt.
“Unit One to Control,” he said. He listened carefully for a response but got nothing. Somebody broke squelch, but if there was a message, he couldn’t hear it.
“Unit One to Control,” he tried again. “Nan? Are you there?”
Again, nothing. Not surprising, really. These low-band radios were a pain in the ass once you got them into the woods. If he had his patrol car down here, with its five-watt mobile unit, there’d be no problem. He briefly considered the option of going back for it, just to call in a report, but decided that would be silly. He was here, and the bad guys were here. He might as well take a look at what they were doing.
The conscious realization of where he was hit him like a smack in the face. Sweet Jesus, he was in the middle of the most hazardous spot on earth!
“You are out of your cotton-pickin’ mind,” he mumbled. He looked back again, and he considered the mobile radio one more time.
Make this collar and they’ll be calling you a hero, he told himself. He drew the. 38 from its holster, then started his long walk toward the exclusion zone.
Travis’s big breath took him as far as the doorway and then about ten feet farther. If his folks had been closer to the front, he’d have been able to dash in, grab one of them, and then dash out again. As it was, there was no way for him to make it. His lungs screamed for relief, and as he turned to head back toward the door, the breath just popped out of him in a giant rush. Then, before he could stop himself, his diaphragm rebounded and sucked in a huge lungful of air.
Travis winced, closing his eyes tightly in anticipation of death, but nothing happened. There was a lot of dust, and it tasted like shit, but he felt fine, other than the urge to sneeze. Even the sneeze tasted awful.
Carolyn didn’t hear anything, actually; she sensed a noise she didn’t recognize through the layers of protective clothing. She pivoted her body to get a reassuring glance at sunlight, and there was Travis, silhouetted
