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  “If you do as I say, all charges against you will be dropped. You will be back at Florida State in time for pre-season football training. Understand that I hold all the cards. Am I clear?”

  Cal nodded slowly, looking straight at Mr. C. His face was hard and he didn’t break eye contact either. “Yes sir, you are perfectly clear, but there is one more thing, or I won’t go back with you. You have to promise to drop all charges against Camm too. She can’t go to prison either.”

  The two old men looked at each other without expression. There was no outward sign of any communication, but in a moment, Mr. C turned back to Cal.

  “Of course, no charges against Miss Smith either. We will see she is returned to Yale in time for fall semester, and her scholarship will continue unabated.”

  Cal pressed this point. “I know she’s in hiding, being uncooperative and giving you the run-around, but you can’t use that against her. Okay?”

  Mr. C tightened his grip on the wheelchair armrests, obviously losing patience again. “We know where she is and could arrest her at any time. She meets daily with her friend, Martha, and is being sheltered by the FBI agent, Linda Allen, though neither knows we know it.

  “We don’t care about her. It is you we are focused on now. Must I belabor the point?”

  “No sir.” Cal shook his head, spreading his hands in submission. “Let both Camm and me go, and I will do what I can to help you in that other world.”

  “Too soon. This is too soon.” Mr. S took the wheelchair, turning Mr. C away from Cal. “You need further treatment here. You stay. I will go. It is just too soon for you to go now.”

  Mr. C slowly turned his gaze to Mr. S. Having reached a definitive agreement with the prisoner, he was panting now, allowing himself to show signs of the ever-present pain.

  “I have to go now. It is the only way to find out what is going on. And, in fact, it is the only way to save my life. Don’t argue with me on this point, brother. Trust me!”

  Mr. C interlocked his fingers and placed his hands on his belly. Slowly he looked up as if to contemplate the buzzing light. He took a careful breath.

  “I will die if we don’t go soon—very soon!”

  IX

  “No! No! No!” Camm did not intend to raise her voice, but she was almost shouting.

  “Smith, just relax, let me explain . . .” Agent Allen glanced at Camm’s mulish face.

  Camm pointed her finger for emphasis. “No! I’m telling you, no!”

  The two women rode in Agent Allen’s new car, another yellow Mustang, driving from Ridgecrest back to Trona and the old Searles Mansion. The setting sun shone through the back window, casting a long shadow on the road ahead of them. Agent Allen had been trying to explain the new Swift Creek plans for the mansion, but Camm kept interrupting.

  “Camm! Listen!” Agent Allen exclaimed firmly, before Camm could say anything more. Agent Allen only used Camm’s first name when Camm was in trouble.

  Camm did not feel calmer, but she allowed Agent Allen to speak.

  “As you know, Swift Creek is the covert government operation that took over the mansion during World War II to protect the inter-dimensional mining operation by keeping the cross-dimensional portals open. That operation has continued uninterrupted, until just recently. Both old men, S and C, are now going to the alternate mansion’s world to check on things there that are no longer working properly, whatever that means. They also want to bring Jones’ hippy friend back to our world.” She hesitated a second. “They want to see the other world for themselves, from a scientific point of view. And for whatever reason, Mr. C thinks he may heal better over there.”

  “What does any of that have to do with Cal?” Camm shot back.

  “J ones, I mean, Cal has been there. They want him to be their guide to show them around. They are set on taking him with them. We can’t stop them. We’re just pawns in their chess game.

  “But, Cal is smart—he cut a deal. In exchange for helping them, they will drop all charges against him and you too. You’ll both be home free!”

  “I don’t care about that!” Camm retorted. “I’m not home free if I lose Cal in the process.”

  Agent Allen sighed. “Well, you should care. You only live once and you don’t want to spend the one lifetime locked away in solitary confinement. Besides, they are also taking me along. I will look after your boyfriend while we’re on the other side. Okay?”

  Camm recoiled at the term “boyfriend.” Truthfully, she did not know how to describe her relationship with Cal. She would like him to be her boyfriend. She had hoped to spend some time with Cal, so they could figure it out together. But now, Cal was going back to that other world, where all the predators came from. He might not make it back to this world.

  Agent Allen turned up the air conditioning and continued, “Agent Kline is going too, because of his in-depth expertise with the operation of the mansion’s dimensional transition systems—something about the mansion’s peculiar arrangement of inter-active antennal field-regulator structures.” She rolled her eyes.

  “Don’t ask me what that means, but he is supposed to look at something on the other side that works in concert with something on this side. I’m guessing that is the big grandfather clock.”

  She shook her head and took a deep breath. “Anyway, he’s bringing one big bad revolver, more like a cannon. I’ve seen it do real damage on giant predators that come over to our side.”

  Camm rolled her eyes and waved a hand, dismissing that point, but Agent Allen ignored her.

  “Finally, a couple combat-trained agents are coming along for our protection as well. That makes seven of us—everyone armed to the teeth.”

  Camm stared at Agent Allen in disbelief. “You’re not listening to anything I’ve said. People go over and they don’t make it back alive. Believe me, I saw mummified corpses of guys who tried and failed. They had big bad guns too, and were soldier types. But, they died; they all died.”

  Agent Allen countered, “Come on, Smith! Jones went over and came back alive.”

  “Yeaaaah,” Camm said sarcastically. “Once! He went over by accident and came back alive, so what are we doing? Sending him back again to see if he can get himself killed this time.”

  Agent Allen’s face stiffened and her grip on the steering wheel tightened. She gritted her teeth, looking sideways at Camm. When she finally responded, she spoke carefully. “I’m not excited about going myself, but I will be there too. I will keep an eye on Jones and protect him from whatever is over there.”

  Reacting to the tension in the car, Agent Allen had been gradually increasing the speed of the car without meaning to. Her car now flew down the road, wheels barely skimming the pavement.

  “Well,” Camm struggled for an answer. “You can’t protect him if you’re dead too.”

  A few seconds of silence passed in the car as Camm’s words hung in the air.

  Giving Camm a hard glance, Agent Allen said simply, “Thanks for your concern.”

  Shoulders slumping, some of the fight went out of Camm.

  “I’m sorry. That was a mean thing to say. You know I don’t want you to get killed or hurt either. It’s just, why go over at all? It seems so stupid to me.”

  Agent Allen glanced at Camm. “I’m not thrilled about it either. But, I have no say in the matter, and neither does Agent Kline. For that matter, neither does Cal.

  “No one wants to go over to that other world. It’s like being in the Twilight Zone. But orders come from above, and I follow them. We all follow them. That’s the way it is. If I have no say in the matter, you certainly don’t either!”

  She sent Camm a meaningful look that said their conversation was over.

  Camm folded her arms across her chest and stared out the front windshield, scowling deeply. In a low mumble, speaking to herself, she said, “Well, then, I’m going too
.”

  “No, you are not!” Agent Allen replied emphatically.

  The car’s speed increased a little more.

  “If Cal’s going, then I go!”

  Agent Allen had no idea Camm could be so stubborn. “Let me repeat. You have no say in the matter. None whatsoever. Cal goes; you stay. End of story.

  “Besides, there is another agent, who will be staying in the mansion on this side, in charge of things here. Everyone calls him Granny. He has that rat to deal with. I know he hopes to get help from you, since no one knows as much about the rat as you do. It isn’t spending time in the mansion any more, but is still in Trona. It got one of the NSA agents the other night. Granny’s job is to find and neutralize the rat.”

  “Does that mean kill it?” Camm challenged.

  “I don’t know. It means whatever the old men want it to mean.”

  Camm snorted in reply.

  “Whatever it means, you are staying. Cal is going.”

  “No! No sir! Cal stays or I go, too. You just try to stop me.”

  “Try to stop you?” Agent Allen shook her head. “You’re already stopped. Your name is not on the invite list. You can’t come, because we say you can’t come. There is nothing you can do about it. Jones goes because we say he goes, and there is nothing you can do about that either.”

  Agent Allen seethed, her voice boiling with frustration. “You were told not to come back to Trona, but you did. You blame us. You made things worse by coming back.”

  Camm raised up, her eyes wide. “Oh yeah! It’s you guys who made everything worse from the moment you came to Trona. We did better without you.”

  “You got lucky!” Agent Allen glared at Camm. “You managed to kill the transition guardian and leave the dimensional overlap unguarded. You did half a job, and now you’ve come back to play with the adults. Well, I have news for you. It’s time to stop flitting around like some goofy coed. It is time, Missy, to grow up!”

  That stung, stung bad. “Oh, you don’t think I’m grown up?” Camm sputtered, not knowing what to say next. Agent Allen cut her off.

  “Not the way you are acting now, I don’t. Smell the coffee, kiddo. I’m just telling you things the way they are. There is nothing you can do about it until you stop acting like an impulsive child.”

  That pushed Camm over the edge. “You say I’m a child who needs to grow up? Well, I grew up that night Hughie disappeared. I grew up when that rat came after Cal and me and killed Ginger. I grew up the night it killed Mr. Samuel and threw his dead body over the balcony like a rag doll. I grew up when Cal and I faced the rat alone and killed it. Where were you when that happened?”

  Camm was shouting again. “I grew up when the giant spiders climbed all over me. I grew up when that monster snake killed Agent Roberts. Yeah, I grew up when the snake tried to chase us down and eat us, and you wrecked your car, almost killing Martha. I was the one who walked out of the desert to get help. I think I’ve grown up enough for several lifetimes. And, right now, in this lifetime, I am not going to lose Cal!”

  Agent Allen turned to Camm. “If I hear another word out of you about . . .”

  Camm wasn’t listening. She stared straight ahead, a horrified expression on her face.

  Jerking her head back to look forward through the windshield, Agent Allen saw a giant black widow spider ambling across the road. This spider was bigger than the ones they had seen at Valley Wells. Its shiny black spherical abdomen was almost as big as her Mustang.

  Slamming down on the brake pedal, she tried to steer her car onto the dirt shoulder and veer behind the spider, but the car clipped one of the spider’s rear legs and careened into a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree spin. Dirt and gravel sprayed everywhere. When the car came to a rest in a swirling dust cloud, it was long moments before Camm or Agent Allen could see anything outside.

  Through the thick dust, a black form occasionally could be seen moving around the car. Periodically, something tapped on the car’s roof or trunk, as if testing it.

  Camm choked back a gag. “That thing smells like rotting flesh!”

  Agent Allen nodded, but said nothing. Her eyes scanned in all directions as she held her pistol with both hands, pointing up.

  Finally, the dust cleared enough to see out more than just a foot or two.

  “Where is it? Can you see it?” Agent Allen swiveled her head back and forth.

  Camm shook her head. “I don’t see it, but it could be hiding nearby in a gully or ravine.”

  Agent Allen uncocked her pistol, set it on the seat beside her, and drove slowly back onto the paved road. “Well, we won’t go looking for it.”

  Camm shook her head in disgust. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about . . .”

  Agent Allen held up a hand. “Please! Stop!”

  Her steel-hard eyes bored a hole through Camm. Agent Allen spoke in a strained voice. “Don’t make me sorry I saved you from jail. You stay. Cal goes. I go. End of story. End of discussion. Now, you can either stop talking or get out and walk. I don’t care if there is a giant spider out there.”

  Camm cleared her voice as if to speak, but Agent Allen interrupted again. “I said, end of discussion! This conversation is over!”

  They rode the rest of the way to Trona in total silence, both staring straight ahead.

  X

  Seated on the tile floor of the Searles Mansion’s gigantic main hall, Cal rummaged through the government-issue backpack they had given him. Military c-rations, energy bars and other concentrated foods were jammed tightly inside. He smiled. I will have food with me this time.

  Several bottles of water had also been placed in his pack. Looking around, he located Mr. S standing close by, reviewing pages of notes in a leather binder.

  “Hey,” Cal called as he stood up. “Glad to see the food in my pack, but like I told you, there is running water in the other mansion. I don’t think we need to carry these heavy water bottles.”

  Mr. S did not look up. “Where does that water in the other mansion come from?”

  Cal shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Exactly. That is why we are bringing drinking water.” Mr. S glanced up from his typed notes to smile at Cal. “We do not want to leave anything to chance. Comprende?”

  Cal grinned in spite of himself. “Si señor.”

  With his backpack now catalogued, Cal glanced around the hall, feeling bored. Everybody was busy getting ready for the transition. An extraordinarily large black man fussed with the giant grandfather clock. Many of the component parts of the clock, which had been arranged like a jigsaw puzzle on the floor, were now being reassembled inside the clock. In addition to the original parts, some new parts, shiny and freshly machined, were also being added to the mechanism.

  Mr. S, still buried deep in his notes, occasionally offered advice to the black man. Mr. C sat near Mr. S in a motorized wheelchair. When he wasn’t chewing someone out for something that wasn’t quite right, he scowled in either disapproval or pain.

  All the agents were busy making preparations and looked harried. Everyone, except Mr. S, tried to dodge the wrath of Mr. C, giving him a wide berth.

  Granny entered the hall from the dining room, a sly smile on his face. Whenever he could, Cal visited with Granny about different types of weapons and their capabilities. Granny appeared to have all the answers. To say the least, Cal was impressed.

  Glancing again around the hall, a thought struck Cal as he saw one of the combat-trained agents cleaning his Glock 19 handgun. Stepping over to Mr. S and Mr. C, who were deep in discussion, Cal cleared his throat. “Hey.”

  The old men looked up, Mr. C still scowling.

  “Yeah, I was wondering. When do I get a gun?”

  Mr. C shook his head in disbelief. Mr. S raised an eyebrow. “Son, how old are you?”

  Cal shrugged. “Nineteen.”

&n
bsp; “And, you want us to give you a gun?” Mr. C sounded incredulous.

  “Hey!” Cal stood straighter. “I’ve been around guns my whole life. I own a Weatherby Mark V, a twelve-gauge shotgun, a .22, and a .357 Magnum. My dad has a whole collection of rifles and pistols, and I’ve been out shooting them all. As I explained, last time I went to the other side, I had my .357 with me. You don’t have to worry about me. I know my way around guns.”

  The old men exchanged a look.

  “If we give you a gun, are you going to shoot one of us by accident?” This came from Mr. S, an amused smile on this face.

  “No way! I’m safe; I know what I’m doing. I should have a gun, at least for self-protection.”

  Mr. C still shook his head. Mr. S studied Cal as if reaching for an answer.

  The agent with the Glock 19 spoke up, “We can’t give you a weapon, kid. It’s against policy. A gun is for fun. Weapons are for killing. We are not going to be having fun.”

  Mr. C shot an angry look at the agent. “When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

  The agent straightened. “Sir, I was only saying it goes against protocol and training. We don’t give weapons to civilians, especially this young. It’s not only correct protocol, it is the law.”

  Mr. C frowned. “I think you have confused me with someone who cares.” He pointed at Cal. “This young man is risking his life to show us what is on the other side.”

  Cal tried to hide a grin. He liked the way this conversation was going.

  Mr. C turned to Mr. S. “After we transition, what jurisdiction are we in?”

  Mr. S smiled. “I suppose we won’t be in any jurisdiction at that point. It’s no-man’s land.”

  Mr. C nodded grimly. “Exactly. On the other side, we are the law.” Turning his attention to Cal, he continued, “Once we transition to the other side, at that point and not before, you can have a gun, or weapon.” He added the last word dripping with sarcasm.

  Stabbing a finger at the agent who had volunteered his opinion, he added, “You will see that we bring with us an extra pistol and holster. When we have transitioned, you will give it to this young man with ammunition and make sure he knows how to use it.”