Fatal Green Read online

  IV

  Summer hit Trona like a hammer hitting an anvil. Agent Kline tried to shade his eyes with his hand, but it was futile. Standing out in the open, there was no way to hide from the sun.

  This is not the place for a large, black man, he thought.

  The first thing that bothered him was not the heat, though that was bad enough. The first thing was the mega-brightness of the sun. It was excruciating. On a clear day, which was most days, the sun blazed so brightly it washed out the colors from his surroundings right before his eyes. Though he wore dark sunglasses, a baseball cap, and squinted his eyes, he still felt like he stared directly into the electric arc of an industrial welder.

  How do people live here? He shook his head in disbelief.

  Normally, Agent Kline worked inside the mansion all day where he was out of the direct sunlight and the air was relatively cool—meaning somewhere between eighty-five and ninety-five degrees. But, his new assignment took him out into the field to search for common factors that could predict where a possible dimensional anomaly might manifest. In other words, he was hunting for the places where an intersection between the two overlapping worlds might open up next.

  The only good thing Agent Kline could think of in connection with this outside job assignment was that he had not had any LSD flashbacks while working out in the bright sun and high heat found so abundantly in Trona’s out of doors. Ever since Agent J. R. had accidentally injected Agent Kline with LSD, he had had occasional flashbacks, but only inside the mansion, where the initial drug-induced high had occurred. Somehow the flashbacks seemed to be triggered by the original setting and other environmental conditions inside the mansion.

  The field assignment came directly from the old man himself. The two old scientists from the NSA had brought him in months ago to map and analyze the mansion’s peculiar system of interactive antennal field-regulator structures, which had been built into the walls and foundation of the building and were mirrored in similar structures built into the chemical plant next door.

  Agent Kline’s inside assignment had been progressing well until a botched attempt to rescue two college kids lost in the overlapping dimension. In the effort, Mr. C, the younger of the two scientists, was bitten by a giant Mojave Green rattlesnake from the other world and was now on death’s doorstep. It was a wonder he was still alive, but he was a tough old coot and probably wouldn’t die until he was ready. Mr. S, the older scientist, now gave all the orders himself.

  In spite of the risk of flashbacks, Agent Kline was anxious to complete his field assignment as quickly as possible, so he could continue his original work inside the mansion. Again, he mopped the sweat off his brow.

  Outside temperatures were already well over one hundred degrees, and it wasn’t even noon yet. Heat penetrated his dark skin like the sun was just inches off his shoulder. He had an insane impulse to scream, back off, just back off! But, there was already too much crazy going on in this desert valley. He wouldn’t add any more to the mix.

  Agent Kline adjusted his cap, pushed his sunglasses further up on his nose, and undid another button on his white shirt. The intense heat continued to stab at him, sucking out his body’s moisture. What he wouldn’t give right now for just a little shade and a tall, frosty-cold glass of beer. Taking a huge slurp from a giant-size bottle of warm lemon Gatorade, he tried to get his bearings and focus his overheated brain on his assignment.

  His mission was twofold. Find the locations of possible dimensional anomalies, and then figure out a way to get a message through to that weird kid who had not made it back in the botched rescue attempt. One kid, California Gold Jones, was rescued, but the other . . . What was his name?

  Agent Kline pulled a notebook from his pocket: Sebastian Cornelius Humanistaid. Weird name for a weird kid—no wonder his friends just called him Lenny.

  This Lenny kid was still lost in the other dimension, in the parallel Searles Valley, and they needed to figure out how to get him back. To Agent Kline, it seemed unlikely that Lenny would still be alive. Any rescue effort was probably a waste of time and money. But, Mr. S seemed determined to retrieve Lenny, or what was left of him, even though no one believed they could retrieve him without actually going over to the other side to get him. But that was like jumping off the edge of the world, something no one was anxious to do—no one except Misters C and S.

  Agent Kline had heard the old men arguing. Mr. C wanted to go over to the alternative world as soon as possible. Mr. S also wanted to visit the other world, but he wanted to focus first on getting Mr. C healed up. Neither seemed concerned about Lenny. Agent Kline guessed the old men had hidden reasons for going over to the other side and were using the boy as a convenient excuse to travel there. While saving Lenny was a noble cause, Agent Kline wished he knew the real reason the old men were willing to risk everything to visit that other world.

  Agent Kline checked his figures again. He stood on the dry lake side of the Trona Wildrose Highway, just over the Inyo County line. An unusually large deposit of bismite ore lay directly below the surface at this location. For some reason, inter-dimensional manifestations were connected with sites located above large concentrations of heavy metals. Mr. S was sure there was a connection with plutonium, but Agent Kline had also found a correlation with bismite.

  He didn’t think it a coincidence the snake tended to be present at many of the crossover manifestations. He figured that because the snake was at the top of the food chain in its world, it must be accumulating some rare element found in the soil of that alternate Searles Valley. Because of the size of the snake, it had accumulated a lot of this element, which in concert with heavy elements, found naturally in both dimensions, created the catalyst that triggered an active transition.

  If his assumptions were correct, Agent Kline thought it likely this heavy metal deposit on this side of the dimensional overlap would interact with the giant snake on the other side. Something could happen here, but what? And when?

  The sound of an approaching car interrupted his thoughts. He squinted to the south, the sun punishing him for looking in that direction. The town had been completely evacuated weeks ago, so he wasn’t expecting anyone to be on the highway.

  Who could this be? How did this guy get past the roadblocks?

  An old Chevy Nova pulled over to the side of the road. The car could have been blue; it could have been green. The paint was so sun-bleached and faded its original color was no longer discernible. A young woman climbed out. Agent Kline remembered her as the one who had been injured in Agent Allen’s car accident out by Valley Wells while escaping the Mojave Green.

  What was this girl’s name? Marty, Mary, Mercy? He didn’t remember.

  Using a sheath of papers to shield her eyes from the sunlight, she said, “Hi! I’m Martha. Is anyone at the mansion? No one answers when I knock and I have the legal papers that Mr. S . . .”

  Her voice trailed off as she turned a queasy shade of green. The papers slipped through her fingers as she held one hand over her mouth and the other to her stomach.

  Swallowing a gag, she managed to cry, “Oh no! It’s happening again!”

  Clutching her stomach with both hands, she bent over and vomited heartily.

  Agent Kline felt it too, an unsettling feeling of waves running through his body. One moment he felt like he weighed four hundred pounds, the next that he was weightless. It was like riding an extreme roller coaster, except he wasn’t moving.

  This was it! This was the manifestation of an inter-dimensional breach. It was happening right now, right at this very moment. He should be looking for an opening or crossover transition of some kind between the two parallel worlds. He should be taking notes, making a video or something. Instead, it was all he could do to maintain his balance, pay attention, and not start retching like the young woman in front of him.

  Everything around him was wavy, like looking at heat waves ris
ing off a hot desert highway. Except these waves were on top of him, not at a distance, and he not only saw them, he felt them. In the future, he would have to find some way to record the event even if he was incapacitated.

  He hoped for a glance into the other world, but so far, he saw only his own world.

  He smelled rain and the earthy scent of the desert after a recent rainstorm. In his world, there had been no rain, not even rain clouds, for many days.

  And though the desert had been completely quiet moments earlier, it was now full of strange noises coming from somewhere close by. One noise in particular was disconcerting, like something very big and heavy sliding through the sand.

  Instantly, he was on the alert for the Mojave Green. If his theory about heavy-metal deposits acting as catalysts to transitional events was correct, this event could have been triggered by the presence of the giant snake in the parallel dimension.

  Martha had dropped to her hands and knees, dry heaving and gasping for air. Agent Kline eyed her sympathetically. Some people just could not handle the sensation of vertigo. Though shaky and unsteady, at least he was still able to stand.

  Then, it dawned on him that in this condition she was helpless, an easy meal for any predator crossing over.

  Grabbing the twelve-gauge shotgun he always carried with him in the field, he wobbled over to stand by the woman. She had been through so much. He didn’t intend for her to be simply another easy target for a creature from another dimension, not as long as he was able to stand.

  Then, Agent Kline saw it, a rip in the atmosphere. Down the road, above the Nova, a crack opened, a peep hole into another world. The mountains in the background were the same, but in the foreground, the bushes and rocks didn’t match. It was as if he was looking at two photos of the same landscape taken years apart.

  The air was still and hot around Agent Kline, but through the crack, he saw bushes waving in the wind. It was raining there. His sky was clear. On the other side, dark clouds blew by.

  The crack opened wider and lengthened up and down. It subsumed part of the Nova and stretched to where Martha still retched, though she didn’t seem to have anything left to throw up. She must have heard something, because she looked up and cried out between gags. Agent Kline leaned down, but before he could help her up, a giant insect, transparent orange in color, climbed over the Nova and did a complete three-hundred-and-sixty-degree turn-around as it reconnoitered the area.

  Martha stopped gagging and gasped in horror.

  At first, Agent Kline thought it was a scorpion, but it didn’t have a tail with a stinger. It also couldn’t be a spider, because it had five pairs of legs, though the front pair of legs, which were constantly waving up and down as well as back and forth, ended in grasping, scissor-claws. The creature stood facing the humans, watching them with two spherical black eyes, as big as grapefruits, perched close together on top of its large head. Its mouth was enormous and extended outward with sharp, pointed pincer jaws. The back legs moved rapidly up and down.

  Agent Kline started, “What the . . . ?”

  Martha interrupted. “A giant camel spider! When will this nightmare end?”

  Agent Kline couldn’t take his eyes off the huge bug. “A what?”

  “Some call it a sun spider, though it’s not actually a true spider. It moves very fast and eats meat, like insects, birds, small mammals. I’m a small mammal! Shoot it! Please! Shoot it now!”

  Almost in the same instant, the giant camel spider leapt forward and Agent Kline fired the shotgun. The shot blasted away the front half of the camel spider’s head, but its inertia carried it forward, dropping it on top of the cowering young woman, who screamed once and went silent.

  Though clearly dead, the giant camel spider still twitched. Agent Kline noted with horror that one corner of the transition opening had pushed its way almost to his feet. Both the body of the camel spider as well as the young woman beneath it lay on the other side of the dimensional divide.

  Grabbing one of the front arms of the camel spider at the point where it attached to the big head, Agent Kline struggled to lift the thing off the woman. He instantly realized it was too big and heavy to lift completely off the ground with just one hand. Luckily, only its head lay on Martha. Otherwise, it would have crushed her under its dead weight.

  Dropping his shotgun, Agent Kline used one hand to pull the thing’s head back far enough to reach underneath with his other hand. Grabbing Martha’s arm, he pulled her clear of the camel spider. As he did so, he realized the transition opening now fluctuated erratically in size and position, apparently no longer stable. His brows pulled together with concern. He needed to get Martha away from the dimensional breach.

  Hoisting her easily to one shoulder—she weighed much less than the camel spider—he tried to carry her away from the opening. Though the ground wasn’t moving, he felt as if he walked on the deck of a small ship in stormy seas. Reeling like a drunken sailor, he stumbled back and forth, almost falling with each step, Martha bouncing up and down on his shoulder.

  Finally, he gained some momentum stepping away from the opening and ran about twenty yards before his wobbly legs gave way. Exhausted, he fell to his side, holding Martha up so she landed on him, not on the hard ground.

  Looking back in a panic to see if the opening was still expanding, he saw the transition tear had stopped growing. In no immediate danger, he took a moment to catch his breath while he made mental notes of as much of the transitional phenomena as he could visually take in. He was still first and foremost a scientist. He wanted to learn as much about this transition manifestation as possible, so he could later give a detailed explanation to the old NSA scientist.

  He was still mentally organizing his data when Martha, who had been in a dead faint, suddenly grabbed his shirtsleeve with both hands, screaming, “Where is it? Where is it?”

  He pointed to the lifeless camel spider. “Look over there. It can’t hurt you. It’s dead.”

  Standing to test his balance, he reached down to take Martha’s elbow and pull her gently to her feet. Struggling to stand, she tried to steady herself by holding onto him, but he didn’t feel that stable himself. The vertigo and swaying sensation had not disappeared completely, though it had moderated, becoming less overwhelming. Carefully, but hurrying as much as he could, he guided her away from the tear and further up the road towards his own parked car.

  She stumbled as he half-pulled, half-carried her away. The swaying sensation continued to fade as their distance from the tear widened. Finally, he was able to lift her up off her feet and move faster, though he kept an eye on the tear behind him. Martha watched it also.

  The anomaly was now changing rapidly, so Agent Kline stopped to watch more closely. The dimensional tear had stabilized in size, but its edges had grown fuzzy. With a start, he realized a huge, green snake, hissing loudly, slithered past the opening on the other side. Its scales glistened with rainwater, dark green on a white belly with dark diamond shapes on its back. As it passed by, he saw the end of its tail with black and white concentric circles leading down to the rattles. The smaller rattles at the very end were broken.

  “Did you see that?” Martha stammered.

  “Yes!” Agent Kline nodded with his mouth open. “Thank heaven that ugly camel spider, not the Mojave Green, came through the dimensional tear this time.”

  Abruptly, the opening slammed shut with a clap of thunder and the sharp screeching of tearing metal. As the opening closed, it threw the Nova right at them. The car spun through the air, giving Agent Kline the impression he could see both inside and outside the car at the same time.

  Yanking Martha into his arms, he jumped sideways as far as he could leap. As they hit the hard ground, he used his body to cushion the impact on the woman, dispersing the impact further by rolling across his elbows, holding her tight against his chest.

  The right front tire o
f the spinning car glanced off his booted foot, sending them both sprawling across the desert floor. When Agent Kline was able to gather himself together, he jumped up. By instinct, he brought both hands up in front, waiting for the next thing to come at him. Car, snake, whatever. But nothing came. He whirled to the right, then to the left. Nothing.

  Looking back to the highway where the Nova had been parked, he saw the dimensional tear was gone. The hot, dry scene along the road was the same as before the anomaly, except now the dead body of a giant camel spider lay on the road, its long, spindly legs jerking erratically.

  Helping Martha to her feet, he asked, “Are you okay?”

  Her face was pale white, her eyes wide, glistening with unshed tears. She nodded, biting her lower lip and clinging to Agent Kline’s shirtsleeve.

  Turning to where the Nova had been thrown, Agent Kline saw why he had been able to see both inside and out at the same time as the car flew toward him. The car had been sheared in half midway between the front and back seats by the force of the tear’s closure. The front of the car rested on the desert floor in this world. The rear-end of the car was evidently on the other side of the breach, in the alternate Searles Valley. The two gazed in amazement at the half Nova.

  Taking a deep breath, Martha peered up at Agent Kline, shaking her head as she fought back the tears. “That wasn’t my car. I borrowed it from a friend.”

  Agent Kline wiped sweat and dust off his large, gleaming forehead and nodded solemnly.

  “Well,” he responded. “That makes it a bit awkward then. Doesn’t it? It won’t be easy explaining what happened to the back half of that car. I suppose a little monetary compensation for damages never hurts.

  “First, though, let’s see if we can find those legal papers you brought for Mr. S. I think that giant camel spider is lying on them.”

  V

  Linda hurried. She was late, over an hour late. Rushing past familiar Connecticut spring flora, she heard someone calling her name, “Linda! Linda! Over here!”