For the first time since he got a look up Katie Fenner’s skirt in his junior year of high school, his prayers were answered.
The truck looked like something from one of the hundred or so World War II games he’d worked on over the years. It rumbled up to him, and the window was lowered so a gnarled man wearing an orange stocking cap could lean over and ask, “You Cole?”
“Yeah. I…sure am.”
“You wanna get in?”
“Oh yeah.”
“It’s open,” the driver said. “Hop inside.”
And Cole did need to hop because the driver wasn’t about to hit the brakes. The moment his backside hit the seat, he leaned back and let out a breath he might have been holding since he’d left the cabin. At the tail end of that same breath he started laughing. Oddly enough, the driver laughed along with him.
“Feel good to be sittin’ down, eh?” the man asked in an accent that had an equal chance of being Canadian as it had of being a bad impression of a Canadian.
“It sure does.”
“Who sent ya?”
Cole had peeled his gloves off and was rubbing his hands in front of the closest vent. He was concentrating so hard on thawing out his fingers that he let that question slip right past him. He sure didn’t have any trouble hearing what came next.
The pistol was a .44 revolver, and it seemed to have materialized in the driver’s hand. When he pointed the gun at Cole’s head and thumbed back the hammer, the click seemed to echo through the entire cab.
“I asked you a question,” the driver snarled.
“Gerald,” Cole spat. “He…no wait! His name was Stu. He was on the phone and told me to come here.” When he saw that his words weren’t changing the driver’s foul mood, he added, “And Paige too. She told me to meet up with you. In fact, I think she said she might have called you about bringing me something for the ride to the airport.”
The driver lowered his pistol before Cole had his fourth nervous breakdown that day. Glancing toward an expensive radio setup bolted to his dash, the driver grunted, “Just bein’ careful. Never know who might be wandering along the road, eh?”
“Yeah.”
“I got some hot coffee and candy if you want. Paige said you might be hungry.”
“I’ll pass.”
The rest of the ride was spent in silence. By the time they reached the airport, the sun was long gone and the stars were out. Cole got some rest and was only forced back into consciousness when the truck rattled to a stop. It was the first time he’d been still the entire day.
“No need to open both eyes,” the driver said. “Once you’re in the plane, you can go right back to sleep.”
“We’re at the airport?” Cole asked as he absently wiped at his eyes.
“Yep. Sounds like she’s all ready to go.”
Cole pushed open the truck door and was greeted by the rush of icy wind that carried the louder roar of a plane’s engines. Although he couldn’t be certain about the airport, he had a sneaking suspicion he’d seen that plane before. As if on cue, a man wearing the same three flannel shirts layered on top of each other waddled around the plane and waved toward the truck.
“That’s Andy,” the driver said. “He’ll be takin’ you all the way into Chicago.”
“I know who he is. He’s the same guy that flew me here.”
“Really? Then you should feel right at home.”
While he might not have felt right at home, he was already feeling the plummets and barrel rolls that had brought up everything in his stomach on the way into Canada. “Can’t we just fly on a jet?” he asked. “It’d be faster. And…uh…wouldn’t kill me.”
“Oh sure,” the driver replied as he pulled Gerald’s bag from behind the seat. “You got anything in there that you’d like to check through customs?”
“Point taken. I suppose that pilot knows how to fly into the States without hitting customs? Does he have smuggling compartments under the seats?”
Chuckling, the driver replied, “You watch a lot of movies, don’t you? We ain’t terrorists. Andy goes through customs like anyone else. Private planes get a little more slack on personal property, is all. You ain’t carrying any drugs or nothin’, are you?”
“No.”
“All right then. Wouldn’t want you making me look bad.”
Cole managed to catch the bag that was tossed at him before it knocked him in the teeth. After checking to make sure he had everything, he asked, “Does the pilot need a password to refrain from shoving a gun in my face?”
“Keep up that smart mouth and I’m sure he’ll think of something you’ll like even more. You have a good flight, now.”
Even though the driver settled behind his wheel and gunned his engine, Cole didn’t close his door right away. Instead, he extended a hand across the passenger seat and said, “I don’t think I thanked you for picking me up.”
“No. You didn’t.”
“Well…thanks. It’s been kind of a rough day.”
Smirking, the driver shook his hand with almost enough strength to snap it off. “Comes with the territory.”
Releasing his grip on Cole’s hand, the driver eased up on his brake just enough for the truck to roll slowly forward. Once the door had cleared Cole’s shoulder, it was pulled shut and locked with a few quick swats of the driver’s hand. Even after the truck picked up some speed and rumbled away from the airport, Cole was still standing in the spot where he’d been left. Slowly, he allowed some steam to drift from his mouth and straightened himself up. Since there was nowhere else to go, he hauled his things toward the plane.
“This extreme enough for you, dumbass?” he asked himself. As he got close to the plane and started tossing his things on board, he put on a smile and shouted to be heard over the propellers. “Any chance I could get you to swing past Seattle?”
The pilot grinned and replied, “Nope. But do me a favor and look around for some parachutes. The safety inspectors have really been busting my ass about that.”
Chapter 6
It was a cold day. Rain threatened to fall from gray clouds that rolled across a harsh autumn sky. A single, navy blue van moved along a dirt road and pulled off onto a trail that wasn’t much more than a set of crooked ruts in rocky soil. As soon as the van was far enough along the road for the driver to spot the collapsed remains of the old mansion, he sped up, the wheels spinning faster, kicking up a gritty mix of dust, gravel, and dead leaves. On the back of the van was the lettering MEG BRANCH 25.
Steve sat in the passenger seat and was tall enough for the top of his balding head to scrape the roof. His rounded face had yet to display anything less than a smile as he told more than enough jokes to fill the drive from Madison. “That’s the place,” he said. “Park anywhere you like.”
The driver was in his mid-thirties, but had enough youthful energy in his eyes to make him look at least five years younger. His dark brown hair was buzzed close to the scalp and his face was clean-shaven. Finding a parking spot wasn’t difficult, and the driver pulled to a stop just off the faded old road that led the rest of the way to the mansion. “You say this place is haunted?” he asked.
Steve nodded. “I sure do, Jarvis,” he replied, using the driver’s name in a way that seemed well-intentioned but obviously didn’t set well with the driver. “I could tell you plenty of stories from several other people, or I could tell you a few of my own.”
Jarvis leaned over the steering wheel to get a better look at the rubble in front of him. No matter how much squinting or straining he did, he could still only see the sagging remains of a three-story mansion. The roof was full of gaping holes. One half of the building had fallen down altogether. Even the fence surrounding the place was rusted and broken in several spots. “What’s anyone even doing out here?” Jarvis asked. “The place looks pretty run-down.”