7
They came to the billboard showing the awestruck family holding up their gas lanterns. Howie drove slowly up the cracked asphalt entry road, avoiding the potholes as best he could. The temperature, which had been in the mid-fifties when they set out, was now edging into the seventies. It would go higher.
“See that knoll up there?” Holly pointed. “The main cave entrance is in the base of it. Or was, until they plugged it. We should check there first. If he tried to get in that way, there might be some sign.”
“Fine with me,” Yune said, looking around. “Jesus, this is desolate country.”
“The loss of those boys and the rescue party that went after them was terrible for their families,” Holly said, “but it was also a disaster for Marysville. The Hole was the town’s only job provider. A lot of locals left after it closed down.”
Howie braked. “That must have been the ticket booth, and I spy a chain across the road.”
“Go around it,” Yune said. “Give this baby’s suspension a workout.”
Howie drove around the chain, his seatbelted passengers bouncing up and down. “Okay, folks, we are now officially trespassing on private property.”
A coyote broke from cover at their approach and sprinted away, his lean shadow racing beside him. Ralph spotted the remains of wind-eroded tire tracks and assumed that local kids—there had to be at least a few of them left in Marysville—brought their ATVs out here. He was mostly focused on the rocky bluff ahead, site of what had been Marysville’s one and only tourist attraction. Its raison d’etre, if you wanted to be fancy about it.
“We’re all carrying,” Yune said. He was sitting upright in his seat, eyes fixed straight ahead, on alert. “Is that correct?”
The men answered in the affirmative. Holly Gibney said nothing.
8
From his perch atop the bluff, Jack saw them coming long before they reached the acre of parking lot. He checked his weapon—fully loaded, with one in the pipe. He had placed a flat stone at the edge of the drop. Now he lay at full length with the barrel resting on it. He sighted through the scope, putting the crosshairs on the driver’s side of the windshield. A sunflash momentarily blinded him. He winced, drew back, rubbed his eye until the floating spot was gone, then peered into the scope again.
Come on, he thought. Stop in the middle of the parking lot. That would be perfect. Stop there and get out.
The SUV instead trundled diagonally across the parking lot and stopped in front of the cave’s boarded-over entrance. All the doors opened and five people got out, four men and one woman. Five little meddlers, all in a row, lovely. Unfortunately, it was a shit shot. The sun in its current position cast the cave’s entrance in shadow. Jack might have chanced that—the Leupold scope was damned good—but there was the problem of the SUV, now blocking at least three of the five, including Mr. No Opinion.
Jack lay with his cheek against the rifle stock and his pulse beating slow and steady in his chest and throat. He was no longer aware of his throbbing neck; the only thing he cared about was the cluster of meddlers standing below the sign reading WELCOME TO THE MARYSVILLE HOLE.
“Come on out of there,” he whispered. “Come out and look around a little. You know you want to.”
He waited for them to do it.
9
The Hole’s arched entryway was blocked by two dozen wooden planks, attached by huge rusty bolts to the cement plug beyond. With such double coverage against unauthorized explorers, there was hardly any need of No Trespassing signs, but there were a couple, anyway. Plus a few fading spraypaint tags—left, Ralph presumed, by the same kids who brought their ATVs out here.
“Anyone think this looks tampered with?” Yune asked.
“Nope,” Alec said. “Why they even bothered with the boards is beyond me. You’d need a good charge of dynamite to put a hole in that cement plug.”
“Which would probably finish the job the quake started,” Howie added.
Holly turned around and pointed over the hood of the SUV. “See that road on the other side of the gift shop? That goes to the Ahiga entrance. Tourists weren’t allowed to go into the cave that way, but there are many interesting pictographs.”
“And you know this how?” Yune asked.
“The map they gave out to tourists is still online. Everything is online these days.”
“It’s called research, amigo,” Ralph said. “You should try it some time.”
They got back into the SUV, Howie once more behind the wheel with Ralph riding shotgun. Howie started slowly across the parking lot. “That road looks pretty crappy,” he said.
“You should be okay,” Holly said. “There are tourist cabins on the other side of the rise. According to the newspaper stories, the second rescue party used them as a staging area. Plus there would have been lots of media people and worried relatives once the news got out.”
“Not to mention your ordinary garden variety rubberneckers,” Yune said. “They probably—”
“Stop, Howie,” Alec said. “Whoa.” They were a little more than halfway across the parking lot now, the SUV’s stubby nose pointing toward the road that went to the cabins. And, presumably, to the Hole’s back door.
Howie braked. “What?”
“Maybe we’re making this tougher than it has to be. The outsider doesn’t necessarily have to be in the cave—he was hiding in a barn out there in Canning Township.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning we should check the gift shop. See if there’s signs of a break-in.”
“I’ll do it,” Yune said.
Howie opened the driver’s door. “Why don’t we all go?”
10
The meddlers left the boarded-up entrance and returned to the SUV, the stocky balding guy walking around the hood to get back to the wheel. That gave Jack a clear shot. He laid the crosshairs on the guy’s face, took a breath, held it, and tightened down on the trigger. It didn’t move. There was a nightmarish moment when he thought something was wrong with the Winchester, then he realized he’d forgotten to release the safety. How stupid could you get? He tried to push it without taking his eye from the scope. His thumb, greasy with sweat, slid off, and by the time he released the safety, the stocky man was in the driver’s seat and slamming the door. The others were back in, as well.
“Shit!” Jack whispered. “Shit, shit, shit!”
He watched with increasing panic as the SUV started across the parking lot and toward the service road that would take it out of his line of fire. They would crest the first hill, they would see the cabins, they would see the service shed, and they would see his truck parked beside it. Would Ralph Anderson know to whom that truck belonged? Of course he would. If not from the leaping fish decals on the side, then from the bumper sticker—MY OTHER RIDE IS YOUR MOM—on the back.
You can’t let them get up that road.
He didn’t know if that was the visitor’s voice or his own, and didn’t care, because it was right either way. He had to stop the SUV, and two or three high-powered slugs in the engine block would do the job. Then he could start shooting through the windows. He probably wouldn’t get them all, not with the sun glaring on the glass, but the ones who were left would come spilling out into the empty parking lot, maybe wounded, dazed for sure.