Fear Nothing

Considering the high degree of biological isolation required, that subterranean complex is surely in a more remote corner of Fort Wyvern, dramatically larger than these three immense floors, more elaborately hidden, and buried far deeper beneath the earth.

Besides, that facility is apparently still operative.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that dangerous and extraordinary activities of one kind or another were conducted beneath this hangar. Many of the chambers, reduced only to their basic concrete forms, have features that are at once baffling and — because of their sheer strangeness — profoundly disquieting.

One of these puzzling chambers is on the deepest level, down where no dust has yet drifted, at the center of the floor plan, ringed by corridors and smaller rooms. It is an enormous ovoid, a hundred and twenty feet long, not quite sixty feet in diameter at its widest point, tapering toward the ends. The walls, ceiling, and floor are curved, so that when you stand here, you feel as if you are within the empty shell of a giant egg.

Entrance is through a small adjacent space that might have been fitted out as an airlock. Rather than a door, there must have been a hatch; the only opening in the walls of this ovoid chamber is a circle five feet in diameter.

Moving across the raised, curved threshold and passing through this aperture with Orson, I swept the light over the width of the surrounding wall, marveling at it as always: five feet of poured-in-place, steel-reinforced concrete.

Inside the giant egg, the continuous smooth curve that forms the walls, the floor, and the ceiling is sheathed in what appears to be milky, vaguely golden, translucent glass at least two or three inches thick. It’s not glass, however, because it’s shatterproof and because, when tapped hard, it rings like tubular bells. Furthermore, no seams are evident anywhere.

This exotic material is highly polished and appears as slick as wet porcelain. The flashlight beam penetrates this coating, quivers and flickers through it, flares off the faint golden whorls within, and shimmers across its surface. Yet the stuff was not in the least slippery as we crossed to the center of the chamber.

My rubber-soled shoes barely squeaked. Orson’s claws made faint elfin music, ringing off the floor with a tink-ting like finger bells.

On this night of my father’s death, on this night of nights, I wanted to return to this place where I’d found my Mystery Train cap the past autumn. It had been lying in the center of the egg room, the only object left behind in the entire three floors below the hangar.

I had thought that the cap had merely been forgotten by the last worker or inspector to leave. Now I suspected that on a certain October night, persons unknown had been aware of me exploring this facility, that they had been following me floor to floor without my knowledge, and that they had eventually slipped ahead of me to place the cap where I would be sure to find it.

If this was the case, it seemed to be not a mean or taunting act but more of a greeting, perhaps even a kindness. Intuition told me that the words Mystery Train had something to do with my mother’s work. Twenty-one months after her death, someone had given me the cap because it was a link to her, and whoever had made the gift was someone who admired my mother and respected me if only because I was her son.

This is what I wanted to believe: that there were, indeed, those involved in this seemingly impenetrable conspiracy who did not see my mother as a villain and who felt friendly toward me, even if they did not revere me, as Roosevelt insisted. I wanted to believe that there were good guys in this, not merely bad, because when I learned what my mother had done to destroy the world as we know it, I preferred to receive that information from people who were convinced, at least, that her intentions had been good.

I didn’t want to learn the truth from people who looked at me, saw my mother, and bitterly spat out that curse and accusation: You!

“Is anyone here?” I asked.

My question spiraled in both directions along the walls of the egg room and returned to me as two separate echoes, one to each ear.

Orson chuffed inquiringly. This soft sound lingered along the curved planes of the chamber, like a breeze whispering across water.

Neither of us received an answer.

“I’m not out for vengeance,” I declared. “That’s behind me.”

Nothing.

“I don’t even intend to go to outside authorities anymore. It’s too late to undo whatever’s been done. I accept that.”

The echo of my voice gradually faded. As it sometimes did, the egg room filled with an uncanny silence that felt as dense as water.

I waited a minute before breaking that silence again: “I don’t want Moonlight Bay wiped from the map — and me and my friends with it — for no good reason. All I want now is to understand.”

No one cared to enlighten me.

Well, coming here had been a long shot anyway.

I wasn’t disappointed. I have rarely allowed myself to feel disappointment about anything. The lesson of my life is patience.

Above these man-made caverns, dawn was rapidly approaching, and I couldn’t spare more time for Fort Wyvern. I had one more essential stop to make before retreating to Sasha’s house to wait out the reign of the murderous sun.

Orson and I crossed the dazzling floor, in which the flashlight beam was refracted along glimmering golden whorls like galaxies of stars underfoot.

Beyond the entry portal, in the drab concrete vault that might have once been an airlock, we found my father’s suitcase. The one that I had put down in the hospital garage before hiding under the hearse, that had been gone when I’d come out of the cold-holding room.

It had not, of course, been here when we had passed through five minutes ago.

I stepped around the suitcase, into the room beyond the vault, and swept that space with the light. No one was there.

Orson waited diligently at the suitcase, and I returned to his side.

When I lifted the bag, it was so light that I thought it must be empty. Then I heard something tumble softly inside.

As I was releasing the latches, my heart clutched at the thought that I might find another pair of eyeballs in the bag. To counter this hideous image, I conjured Sasha’s lovely face in my mind, which started my heart beating again.

When I opened the lid, the suitcase appeared to contain only air. Dad’s clothes, toiletries, paperback books, and other effects were gone.

Then I saw the photograph in one corner of the bag. It was the snapshot of my mother that I had promised would be cremated with my father’s body.

I held the picture under the flashlight. She was lovely. And such fierce intelligence shone from her eyes.

In her face, I saw certain aspects of my own countenance that made me understand why Sasha could, after all, look favorably on me. My mother was smiling in this picture, and her smile was so like mine.

Orson seemed to want to look at the photograph, so I turned it toward him. For long seconds his gaze traveled the image. His thin whine, when he looked away from her face, was the essence of sadness.

We are brothers, Orson and I. I am the fruit of Wisteria’s heart and womb. Orson is the fruit of her mind. He and I share no blood, but we share things more important than blood.

When Orson whined again, I firmly said, “Dead and gone,” with that ruthless focus on the future that gets me through the day.

Forgoing one more look at the photograph, I tucked it into my shirt pocket.

No grief. No despair. No self-pity.

Anyway, my mother is not entirely dead. She lives in me and in Orson and perhaps in others like Orson.

Regardless of any crimes against humanity of which my mother might stand accused by others, she is alive in us, alive in the Elephant Man and his freak dog. And with all due humility, I think the world is better for us being in it. We are not the bad guys.

As we left the vault, I said “Thank you” to whoever had left the photograph for me, though I didn’t know if