Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43912 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 220(@200wpm)___ 176(@250wpm)___ 146(@300wpm)
MILITARY PERSONNEL ONLY
KEEP OUT
TRESPASSERS WILL BE EXECUTED.
The last sign is accompanied by line art of a man with crosses for eyes and his tongue lolling out of his mouth dangling from a rope.
“I am experiencing feelings of foreboding,” I tell Justice. He smiles, as if my feelings are understandable but unnecessary. I notice that his antennae are both angled forward right now, almost as if eager to return to his home.
“Pull up to the speaker box,” he says, gesturing to another anachronistic piece of technology assailed by time. I had assumed there was no way it would function, but it crackles to life when I edge the truck another foot or two forward.
Justice leans over me, which gives me all the excitement of wings in my face.
“Justice returning,” he says.
There’s no verbal response, but the big imposing gate cranks open, allowing us access to an even more overgrown and imposing road. The gate moves smoothly, suspiciously so. Someone has been maintaining select parts of this compound while deliberately keeping a derelict air.
Every instinct I have is telling me to put this thing into reverse and get the hell out of dodge. We are no longer in the world as I know it. This is like stepping back in time, or maybe out of it completely. Behind these gates, Boomers are still babies. Nothing of the last seventy years has happened. Some would consider this a paradise.
“They’ll be waiting for us,” Justice says, as I hesitate. It’s not precisely what I want to hear or the impetus to get me moving, but curiosity wins out and I put my foot down. Like Jonah and the whale, I am going in.
The road curves this way and that before the foliage parts to reveal what looks like an old factory. Yellow-beige paint no doubt absolutely dripping with lead is peeling from the concrete walls. The entrance is beneath a large semicircular portico ringed with old steel. I can imagine this was once a very impressive facility. Now it is clearly in a state of decay. I can smell rot, or something like it. Something earthy and insect-y, like freshly turned rotting mulch.
“Let’s get out,” he says. “We’re here.”
I don’t want to get out of the truck. I feel more than a little trepidation. This place is deeply creepy. I have a keen sense of being watched by many, many eyes. Given the creatures who live here, that could mean one or two, or anywhere up to half a dozen cryptid mutants.
I glance over at Justice.
“Why don’t you go in and see them, unload the cargo. I’ll take the truck back to Hank.”
“We didn’t just come to deliver Rage,” he reminds me. “We’re here because I want to show you where I came from.”
When he puts it like that, it seems churlish to refuse a home tour. It is the desire not to be rude or insensitive that gets me out of the truck, emotional pressure of the kind I rarely succumb to. I have a weird tingling feeling in my lower stomach. I write that off to nerves, though. I know there are others like Justice here. I am standing on the precipice of something truly secret and odd. This is where creatures of myth and legend were made. This is where the world stopped making sense. The sensation grows. I feel a little nauseous.
Justice reaches out and takes my hand in his lower right hand. His upper right hand settles lightly, but firmly on the back of my neck. I am not sure if his touch is commanding or comforting. It might be both.
I am propelled toward glass doors which have been immaculately cleaned. No fly dirt or spider webs mar the hinges of this entrance. As we enter, the interior of the building reminds me a lot of the interior of his shipping container house, except it is larger.
The 1940’s and 50’s have been preserved here in complete detail. Nothing has been replaced or upgraded. Everything is as it was. The effect is of walking into an entirely different world, complete with alternative color palette. Teal formica is everywhere, as are rounded corners and smooth metal finishes. We walk into a lobby of sorts, or something like a waiting room. The beige linoleum has been mopped recently, and not a speck of dust has accumulated anywhere, but the place is empty.
“Where is everyone? I thought you said they were waiting for us?”
“Do you really want to meet everyone?”
I’m taken somewhat aback by that question. Of course I want to meet his family. I am nervous as fuck, but I am also curious. I am in the center of a mystery, perhaps even a conspiracy that I’ve never heard of before. This is the sort of thing a detective dreams of. I became a member of the force to serve and protect, of course, but I also always had an irrepressible urge to ferret the truth out, to know what others didn’t know. Mystery has always drawn me, and I am standing in the faintly bleach smelling center of what might be the biggest and best-kept secret of the modern age.