G -1 Page 6

  “Well, he sure didn’t tell us everything.”

  “He thought it might be too dangerous,” I explain. She looks up at me.

  “It was dangerous last night, too,” she continues hurriedly, “but he wasn’t worried then.”

  “We didn’t know what we were getting into last night.” I try to think of a way to end the conversation. I feel like a fool, caught between two friends, about to let one or the other down.

  “And what did we get into last night?”

  “Jen,” I plead with a sigh.

  “I won’t say anything to him,” she promises, looking eagerly at me. “Tell me,” she begs expectantly.

  “Jen,” I whine again, “if he ever suspects I’ve told you anything, he’ll be really pissed off at me. You have to keep this completely between us. And nobody else can find out, or even suspect that we know about this, or we could get in enough trouble to last the rest of our lives.”

  She nods eager agreement, so with a secretive whisper, I quickly tell the missing piece of the story. I let out a sigh when I finish.

  “So what are your plans with Jared then?” she presses, though I hadn’t mentioned them.

  “What plans?” I answer, now trying to avoid that subject.

  “C’mon, Ty,” she says. “I’ve known you guys too long. I know he’s probably dying to get at whatever was left behind in the shiff, and it’s something I think you’re probably interested in too. Do you think you can get me to believe that you and Jared aren’t going after it?” She gives me an incredulous look.

  I smile sheepishly. She does know us. “Well, you can’t come along,” I say sternly. “It’s too risky.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she mockingly responds. “I just want know why I’ll be coming to visit you in jail.”

  Jimmy comes up, sets our lunch on the table and hurries away again. We don’t speak any more about it while we eat. She makes some small talk about school and what some of her girlfriends are planning for the summer.

  We ride home, but she doesn’t stop when we get to my house. With a wave, she just keeps riding on down the road to her place. I guess she got what she wanted. I turn into my drive and soon have the hy-ped parked in the shed again. It has been nice to have someone to talk to other than Jared.

  I smile as I go inside. Handsome is sitting on the couch, so I join him. I tell him about lunch, unintentionally drifting off for a nap.

  “Hey! Anybody home?” I hear a voice yell, startling me awake. I look at the clock on the wall. It’s 2:30. I’ve been dozing for about forty-five minutes. “Hey Sis? You home?” I hear the door close. “Oh, Tyler, you’re home,” the voice says as it comes into the front room, whisking the worn baseball cap off its head.

  “Uh, hi, Uncle Earl,” I say with a yawn. “Mom’s at work. Won’t be home ‘till 4:30 or so.” I notice he seems a little agitated about something.

  It’s always something with Uncle Earl. He stops by often to tell Mom a new story about something or other, usually a government cover-up and usually regarding aliens. She thought it was because he had worked in Roswell too long. “What’s up?” I ask to be polite.

  “Oh, nothing much,” he quickly blurts out, but there is something else coming, I can tell.

  “Hey, did you see the shiff land last night?” I ask. He sits down anxiously in the easy chair next to me and gives me a surprised look, like I had read his mind.

  “Did you see it?” His eyes go wide open.

  “Yep. Jared and I were out last night and we saw it land,” I reply, mindful to try and not to tell him everything.

  “Oh, I see,” he responds slowly, looking away from me. He fidgets with the cap in his hands, his thoughts drifting off somewhere else.

  I know Uncle Earl occasionally does odd jobs down at the hangars, like he does at a few other places nearby. He’s actually very good with electronics, and lives down in one of the trailers that had once been used by workers during the construction years of the launch facility. At this point, the whole place is pretty run down with most of the remaining trailers vacant. He is close enough to walk over to the hangars on the days that Jared’s dad needs him to do something which is often enough so Uncle Earl can make ends meet. It is pretty easy to see the goings on at the launch facility from there, too. I wonder what he saw, and wait for him to begin his story.

  “I knew something was up when I asked the boss if I could hang around for the landing,” he starts off, “but he said he had enough help to handle everything, but I said I just wanted to be there to watch it land. Then he put his hand on my shoulder, looked straight at me and said, “I’ve got investors coming to talk business tonight”. Well, I can take a hint; he just didn’t want me around ‘cause I might say something wrong. So I backed off, thinking I don’t want to ruffle his feathers, him being the boss and all. So I just answered, “Guess I’ll just watch it coast in from my stoop then,” and that seemed to make him happy. But ya know, Ty?” he says slyly, “I know my way around that place pretty good, and there’s plenty of places to sneak in and take a peek, if you want to.” He stops for a minute and gets a devilish grin on his face. As his lips pull back into the smile, I can see the gap where a tooth is missing. Ever since I’ve known Uncle Earl, he’s always needed dental work.

  “So what did you do then?” I ask. I was beginning to honestly wonder what he had seen, thinking maybe that’s why we had gotten a visit only a few minutes after Jared and I had returned to The Hill last night. Maybe Uncle Earl had put them on their guard somehow.

  “I decided to sneak in anyway, that’s what,” he proudly announces. Then continuing in a more subdued tone. “Now, I could see from my stoop that there were some vehicles driving in. More than needed for a landing. I watched them park and got out my binoculars. Want to know what I saw?”

  “Sure, if you want to tell me.” I try to not sound too interested.

  “There were army men - with sidearms!” he whispers, looking around to make sure nobody else heard. “I thought that was a little unusual, so I changed my plan a little. I had to get sneakier. I decided to go in while they were watching the landing, using the scrub between me and the runway as cover. As long as I couldn’t see them, they couldn’t see me.”

  “So you didn’t see the landing then?” I ask.

  “Oh, I saw the first part of it all right,” he replies becoming more animated, “but as soon as they had it turned around, I started running, and in the few minutes that it took to get back down to the hangars, I had gotten close up too.”

  He stops to take a breath, then looks at me expectantly. “So what did you see?” I ask calmly.

  “Well, they had the army men posted kind of like lookouts,” he says with a snicker, “but they weren’t looking in the right place. And then a plain old truck backed in, and then they opened the hatch on the shiff, and then two of the men stepped into it, and then they passed something out.” He stops again and the missing tooth makes its non-appearance once more. “Well?” he gushes, “Don’t you want to know what it was?”

  “Just tell me, Uncle Earl,” I say, knowing full well that I know what had been unloaded. He looks around to make sure nobody else is listening.

  “It was an alien coffin,” he reveals in a hushed voice. Then he sits back in the chair looking completely convinced with his discovery.

  I’m kind of amused, but to hide that thought, I slowly get out of my chair as if considering what he has said. Then I begin. “Uncle Earl, that’s ridiculous. What makes you think that? Did you hear somebody say it was an alien coffin or are you just pulling my leg?”

  He seems a little offended, the smile vanishing from his face. “No, I couldn’t hear anybody saying anything,” he explains, “but what else could it be?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe they made gold out of lead up there or something. You know as well as I do, that they’re doing new experiments up there all the time. It could be anything. Alien coffin. Really,” I mutter to myself. Apparently he hadn’t noticed ho
w the box began to float away.

  “Name one,” he said.

  I suddenly become uneasy. I don’t want to arouse any suspicion in him about what I saw. “I don’t know, but I doubt it had anything to do with aliens.”

  Now he looks a little hurt. He knows I’m not going to accept his version of the story, and I sure wasn’t about to tell him mine. He gets up to leave.

  “Well, you believe what you want, but someday, you’re all going to know,” he says, wagging his thumb at himself, “that you’re old Uncle Earl was right about this alien stuff all along.”

  As he makes his way to the door, I walk along side, putting my hand on his shoulder. He shrugs me away, turns to look straight at me and says, “Someday...”

  The rest of the day is quiet as I finish up my chores. About 4:30, Mom gets home from work and starts getting dinner ready. About 5:30, Dad rolls in from his week on the road. He gives me a hug. I mention Uncle Earl’s visit as we stand around the kitchen table. Dad just smiles. He likes Earl’s stories, saying they add some needed fantasy to an otherwise routine life.

  Jared shows up just as we are finishing dinner. He knocks on the door.

  “C’mon in Jared,” Dad calls from the table. Mom greets him too as I excuse myself, carrying my dishes to the sink. “What are you boys up to?” Dad asks.

  There are a few awkward moments of silence. The truth won’t work here and neither of us has an alibi prepared. I don’t like lying to my folks, and I’m not going to start now. “Well,” I start out slowly, “we thought we’d do some stargazing tonight.” We’ve done that many times in the past, and we can take our telescopes along to actually do some so it really won’t be a lie. Jared nods in agreement.

  “Anything new going on up there?” Dad inquires further. He always wants to know what I’m up to, something I appreciate and resent at the same time.

  “Just the usual, I guess,” Jared chimes in, “but there’s always a chance we could be looking at just the right moment to see something truly spectacular.” That is true enough.

  “We’ll be up in the loft until it gets a little darker,” I inform them as I walk over to the door to join Jared.

  “Okay dear,” Mom calls as we step outside.

  I walk across the driveway slowly, as if a heavy weight is on my shoulders. It’s going to be an interesting night but I’m not that anxious to begin. I can tell Jared is excited because he is usually pretty talkative but tonight he’s lost in anticipation. We go through the shed door and up the stairs.

  Sitting near the desk, I look at Jared and ask, “So what do you think we’ll find?”

  He looks up from the floor, with a sly smile on his face. “Well, I’m hoping we find some of whatever was in that case they unloaded from the shiff. That’s the only thing I’m looking for.”

  “What will we bring it back in if we find it?”

  Jared hasn’t thought about that any more than I have. He starts analyzing. “Well, if it’s going to float up on us, it has to be something that can be turned upside down and capped tightly from the bottom.”

  That makes sense so I nod in agreement and think about it further. “I sup­pose if we do find anything, it’s going to be on the ceiling, too.”

  “Probably,” Jared agrees.

  “So we’re going to need something that we can use like an upside down shovel.” That’s weird to think about. I’ve done those little backwards puzzles of moving things while looking in mirrors, but this is going to be an upside-down puzzle; scooping something that’s over your head and putting it into a container. I look around my desk.

  “It probably shouldn’t be metal either, to avoid any magnetic contamination,” Jared suggests, “if that’s possible.”

  That’s sensible, but makes finding something suitable to use even more difficult. We continue to look around the room but nothing looks like it will work. Then an idea hits me! “Paper!”

  “Huh?” Jared responds.

  I look through the top drawer of my desk. There’s some printer paper and some leftover three by five cards that I used for a project at school. Then I see the small manila envelopes. I hold them up for Jared’s approval.

  “That’ll work!” He takes three envelopes out of my fingers, twisting off the metal clasps saying, “just to be safe.” Then he slides them into a pocket. “Let’s get started.”

  “I guess,” I reluctantly agree. We head for the stairs.

  “Don’t forget your telescope.”

  “Now forgetting that would look a little suspicious, wouldn’t it?” I grin, grabbing it off the shelf.

  When we get outside, I walk over to the porch door and yell in, “We’re off to The Hill!”

  “You boys have fun and don’t be too late,” Dad answers.

  Off we go, much like the night before only without Jennifer. I think about my lunch with her earlier as Jared and I walk along quietly. Suddenly, I feel guilty and quietly proclaim, “Jen and I had lunch today.”

  “So?” comes an empty reply.

  “I told her a little more about last night.”

  “What?” Jared stops, turns and glares at me.

  “She already guessed something was up,” I defend myself. Jared cocks his head as if to say “you idiot,” then turns to start walking again. I expected him to be madder.

  We get to The Hill in the usual amount of time, and I store my telescope in the shelter. Jared is standing in the passageway as I come out. “You know, the more people who know about our little venture here, the more likely we are to get caught,” he warns me.

  “She won’t tell anyone,” I calmly reply. “I trust her.”

  “I guess we’ll see.” Then he reaches into his jeans pocket pulling out some latex gloves. “We should put these on now,” he says.

  “What for?”

  “Because I don’t think we should leave any fingerprints behind.”

  “Where’d they come from?”

  “From the machine shop,” Jared explains. “They’re used for washing parts to protect your skin from the solvent.”

  “Won’t they miss them?”

  “Nah. They got boxes full of them. Just don’t rip them on anything. They’re the only ones I brought.”

  I nod an acknowledgement as I slip the rubbery things on. They make my hands feel like they’ve gone partly numb.

  We make our way over to the siding, heading down the tracks like the night before. Occasionally I look behind to see if we are leaving any footprints, but the rock ballast between the railroad ties shows no clue other than some trampled weeds. And any animal would do that.

  Again the moon is bright in the clear sky, casting our shadows along side as we walk. We get to the ramp where we had seen most of the action last night. It’s a lot quieter now. Jared walks into the shadow of the ramp at the end of the rusty steel rails. There are only a few steps down to the base of the ramp and the heavy steel door.

  As my eyes adjust to the dark, I can see Jared facing the door fiddling with some keys. He quickly finds the one he’s looking for. He slides the key in. I hear a faint squeak as he turns it. “I’m sure glad that hasn’t rusted,” he whispers. He leans back, pulling on the door. It doesn’t budge. He noisily kicks at some debris around the bottom of the door. A cloud of dust rises out of the dark and into the moonlight. “Give me a hand, will you?”

  I step down beside him. Together we grip the handle. Quietly he counts, “One, two, three, pull.” The door slides open a few inches with a harsh, grinding sound. He pushes it closed and kicks at the ground again to clear more bunched up rubble.

  “Let’s lift a little bit this time,” he suggests. We grab the handle again, simultaneously giving it a yank up and out. The grinding is a little less this time, but the door opens wider. We cautiously step through.

  The air is stale and dry. I wonder when this entrance was last used. A light pierces the darkness and comes around to my face, illuminating dust as it falls off cobwebs over and around the door. “Get your flash
light out.”

  “I... forgot mine,” I slowly confess. “I had it ready. I even put new batteries in it. I just didn’t set it by the telescope so I’d remember.”

  “That’s not going to help you now. Real smart,” Jared chides and points his beam of light ahead of us and down.

  There is a stairway that goes further down than the light can penetrate. On our left-hand side is an old conveyor that would have helped bring things in or out without a lot of effort. I run my hand over the layer of dust that has built up. The belt feels stiff and dry.

  Jared takes a few steps down shining his light on the top flight of steps. “Be careful. There’ll probably be some junk on the way down,” he warns.

  It’s difficult following his shadow. I feel dumb about forgetting the flashlight as I realize how much it’s going to slow us down. I reach for the handrail on the right. Even through the gloves, I can feel the smooth surface of the steel pipe.

  “Don’t tear your gloves,” Jared cautions again, seemingly aware of what I am doing.

  It gets cooler as we go down. I feel a little chill as the sweat I had worked up on the walk over, gets help with its job of cooling me off. It feels like a lot of time passes before we get to the bottom.

  “What time is it?” Jared asks, trying to shine the light on my watch.

  “7:45,” I note, though we both had looked. “How far down do you think we came?”

  “There were one hundred and forty-four steps,” he reports. “If they were each six inches in height, that would put us about seventy-two feet underground.”

  I look around nervously at what I can see in the halo of his flashlight. Some of the walls have cracks in them. I wonder how long they will hold up.

  “Here,” Jared says, holding out a second small flashlight. “I thought we should have an extra, but you need it more now. Use it sparingly.”

  “Thanks,” is all I can manage as I accept the light. I turn it on. The narrow beam tries to break the darkness in front of us. I can see the passage turns to our left. I turn the light off and follow close behind as Jared rounds the corner.

  Immediately we’re blocked by a closed double door. He pushes through the one on the right. There isn’t any debris on the concrete floor down here but Jared’s flashlight is bright enough that I can see he is leaving footprints in a light coating of dust. We enter a large room, our shadows appearing in front of us.