Lost Cargo Read online

  He ran his hand over the barrier. Her theory seemed as good as any other, and with the sun setting they had no time to stand around and think of a better one. Another bright ripple shimmered through the air. The twilight itself seemed to part and the triangle appeared again at the foot of the boulder. This time they stepped through to the other side.

  “My cell phone stopped working,” Lexie gasped. “I just took pictures with it.”

  “It smells like sulphur here,” Travis said.

  The sulphurous smell grew as they moved toward the open hatch. The wind stirred the trees and died out. He put one hand on the cold rim of the waist high opening and peered into the dark interior. Lexie leaned inside with her face transfixed. He quickly reached out, terrified that some nameless thing would attack her, but soft blue lights glowed on instead.

  The black triangle was still alive.

  His pulse thundered in his ears. The blue light shone across the low ceiling and black walls and radiated from a recessed grid in almost every surface, from the walls to the ceiling and floor, everywhere except a walkway that seemed to float in an optical illusion. The walkway branched off to several black doors, a cabinet, sealed windows, and a single black chair.

  But the empty room provided no clues about the mysterious travelers who’d occupied it. There were no personal effects—no galactic travel mugs, celestial chewing gum, or candy bars, no alien photos, sunglasses, or moonglasses—nothing to comfort a weary traveler on a long voyage through space.

  Lexie looked at Travis. “They must be gone. Are you game?”

  “Sure, I’m game,” he heard himself say, not willing to leave her side.

  Burke caught up with them, breathing hard, his mouth twisted in an odd way. His trousers were still rolled up from crossing the creek. “Don’t touch anything. This could be a military aircraft. Can you smell that? There could be radiation leaks. And we’re running out of time. Look at the sky.”

  The band of orange above the tree line had deepened to crimson streaked with gold. Heavy purple clouds loomed overhead. The sun was finally going down.

  Travis turned his back and jammed a thick branch in the hatch to keep it open. Of course, they were taking a risk. They’d all seen the strange woman devour her food at the table near the Metro. But she didn’t follow them, and he’d half convinced himself it didn’t happen exactly the way he remembered it. And Lexie was foremost in his mind. If she was going in, he was going in with her, and going first.

  Before he could stop her, Lexie crawled through the hatch and gave a triumphant thumbs-up. Travis heaved himself in next. Burke glared at them, hesitated, and crawled in, too. The lights softly thrummed when they all stood up together.

  “What if it takes off with us?” Burke hissed.

  Travis ignored him and stared at the open room, fascinated by the radiant blue grid that now surrounded them on all sides. The light seemed aware of their presence. It glowed more brightly wherever they stood and rippled in little flares across the walls. The black interior seemed designed to resemble the blackness of space and gave the grid the illusion it was shining from a great depth. The longer they stared at the luminous light, the more mysterious it seemed, as though it was beckoning them to come closer.

  Travis had the strange feeling that someone had captured them inside a deceptive blue net. The thought disturbed him, but he’d jammed the hatch and knew they could get out whenever they wanted. Heart pounding, he watched the delight on Lexie’s face when the light trailed after her fingers.

  “The light is everywhere except the walkway,” he said. “Just a design, I guess.” He opened one of the doors and discovered another silent room with the same black walls. Nothing there either. When he stepped over the threshold, though, soft blue light shone across a curtain of thin, floor to ceiling black lines. He carefully reached out and touched bars that felt like cool, rigid steel. Then he saw the formidable cage that filled the room. It was so large he’d missed it at first.

  “Something got out of the cage,” Lexie whispered behind him.

  This section had taken the brunt of the crash. The impact had buckled the hull, ruptured the inner and outer walls, and destroyed the far side of the cage. The lichen-spotted boulder jutted inside, forced through the hull like some stony monster’s bald head. Blue light gleamed like moonlight over the wreckage, while outside in the dark woods the last insects of autumn fluttered, lured by the triangle’s glow.

  Travis touched the bars again. “But who was in the chair in the other room?”

  Burke appeared with a smirk. “I’ll tell you who. The owner of this.” He held up a handsome water bottle.

  “Where’d you get that?” Lexie asked him.

  “Near the chair, and guess what it says.” Burke turned the empty bottle around. “Boston Gear. The mystery is solved. Our UFO hails from the planet of Massachusetts.”

  “It doesn’t say that,” Travis said, embarrassed.

  Burke laughed. “Sure it does.”

  “The photographer dropped it then,” Travis said defensively.

  He stared at the water bottle. The photos had shown a closed hatch and the photographer didn’t take photos inside the ship. How did the water bottle get inside? And who opened the hatch? Unable to answer the riddle, he returned to the first room. Burke was right about one thing. They ought to leave because the sun had set, but he wasn’t going to admit it. He tried the rest of the doors and found them all locked.

  “That’s it,” Burke said. “We did the tour. We’ve seen it all. Let’s go.”

  “Not yet,” Travis said, reluctant to leave without a single answer. He tried the cabinet and was surprised when it opened. Someone had packed the narrow drawers with metal devices, gold balls, and odd objects with raised symbols. Mystified, he ran his hand through the top drawer. Some of the devices resembled restraints, but with three, four, and five bracelets, which made no sense.

  While he stood there in the strange, light-filled room, a sudden urge to pocket something burned in his heart. Something small to keep for himself. He would be crazy not to take proof they’d been there, something to remember this night when he was an old man.

  Soft blue light pulsed around him. He turned his back on the others and slid his hand in the drawer. It didn’t seem to matter what he took because he didn’t understand anything in the cabinet. He felt a tiny thrill when his fingers closed around a metal object. It seemed perfect, small and smooth, with an intriguing hook on one end, and its heavy weight hinted something might be inside. He slipped the object in his pocket.

  Lexie held up a flat silver box. “This doesn’t weigh much. Documents, maybe? There might be something in here that tells us where they came from.”

  “Don’t open that,” Burke warned her. “We don’t know what’s in there.”

  She ignored him, opened the box, and handed the lid to Travis. Gray squares that resembled old-fashioned handkerchiefs or scarves lay inside. After she took one out, Travis had the unpleasant feeling they should have left the box alone. The gray square had the fleshy texture of skin and wriggled in her hand.

  “It’s alive,” she gasped, threw it down, and clapped the lid back on the box.

  The gray skin slowly rose from the floor. It rippled like a manta ray and kept rising until it hovered over her head. The strange creature seemed to be without eyes, jaws, or a nose. It moved closer, and then without warning pointed itself in the shape of a snout.

  Lexie stepped back with a petrified look on her face. The creature followed, pointing at her. Blue light flared around them.

  “What’s it doing?” Burke demanded.

  “I think it’s going to attack me,” Lexie said in a flat voice.

  Travis didn’t see anything he could use as a weapon, so he pulled off his coat. “Lexie, I’m going to throw my coat over it.”

  She nodded and stared above her head. The creature rippled.

  “And when I catch it, I want you to run outside. Burke, you get out now.”

/>   “You’re not ordering me around,” Burke said.

  Travis shrugged, held his coat out, and aimed at the hovering gray creature. “Lexie, run now!”

  The creature dodged the coat, darted between her and the hatch, and shot above their heads. Blue light flamed over the black walls. Then the creature pointed its entire body, sailed at Lexie with furious speed, and attacked her shoulder, flattening itself out and pinning her jacket to the cabinet.

  Lexie screamed and dropped the box. The lid spun down the walkway as the box tipped over. More of the menacing creatures flew out. Brilliant blue light flashed across their pale underbellies, their dark backs, and eyeless faces. They rose in a boiling cloud and wheeled below the ceiling, conforming to its shape, slicing through the air as a single fleshy wing. One circuit, two circuits, three circuits, four.

  The creatures plummeted. Travis leaped in their path, but they evaded him, struck Lexie, struck her jacket, struck again, struck hard, flattening out, growing across her shoulder in a pulsing mound, over the cabinet, over its contours, oozing into the corners and underneath the doors. She pummeled their bodies while they writhed over her collar.

  “Lexie,” Travis shouted.

  “Get them off me,” she screamed. “Get them off!”

  Burke turned on Travis. “This whole insane thing is your fault!”

  “Nobody made you come with us,” Travis shot back.

  “Stop it!” Blue light shone over Lexie’s ashen face. “I have scissors in my purse. Cut my jacket and I’ll try to get out of it.”

  Travis came up with the scissors.

  “Give me the scissors,” Burke said. “I’ll take care of my sister.”

  “Did anybody ever tell you what your problem is?”

  “No, why don’t you clue me in. What’s my problem?” Burke’s eyes flickered to the scissors. Before they had time to realize what was happening, he tripped over the empty box, lost his balance, and fell on his ankle. One foot slipped off the walkway onto the luminous grid covering the floor.

  With a fateful, visceral gurgle, the grid liquefied like a pond of mercury. His foot slid in with a sucking sound as the floor closed around his ankle, holding him fast.

  The lights thrummed.

  Burke crouched down, contorted, one leg underneath his body, one foot inside the floor. Blue light radiated over his furious face. “It has my foot,” he said. “And I think I broke my ankle. It hurts like hell.”

  Travis stared at him. What if you can’t get his foot out, chattered a terrible voice in his head, but he buried the thought. Lexie first, he told himself, then Burke, then get out of the booby-trapped wreck, and if Burke had broken his foot, they would deal with it outside. He cut the seams of her jacket a half inch at a time. The wool was thick and the scissors were dull. The blades gnawed into the fabric. Halfway up the sleeves, he ripped them with his hands and she managed to struggle out, rubbing her arms. The jacket looked as though a phantom stood in it with the outstretched sleeves still fending off the attack.

  Lexie hurried to her brother and knelt down by the grid. “I can’t see anything.”

  “I wouldn’t put your face that close to it,” Burke said.

  She stared at him and moved back.

  “We’ll pry it open,” Travis said. He climbed outside to find a branch to use as a crow bar and felt struck by their isolation. They had hiked far beyond shouting distance of any buildings and the dark woods seemed completely deserted. Anybody hiking down the trails would have gone home by sunset. He found a sharp stick and crawled back inside the bright triangle, keeping his thoughts to himself.

  “We’ll try this.” He knelt down with the stick. “It won’t go in… wait, there it goes. Now, if I can force the rest down, you should be able to pull your foot out.”

  Without warning, the floor rippled toward them, rose in a luminous wave, and yawned open with a flash of blue light. Then it swallowed the stick and pulled Burke’s foot down several more inches.

  Travis jerked his arm away. “Big mistake.”

  “Don’t do that,” Burke shouted. “If you do it again, it’s going to suck my whole leg down. It’s a trap. My trip is ruined and my ankle is broken and it was crazy to come out here. Crazy! Now we’re in some screwed-up situation, miles from civilization, and we can’t even make a phone call.”

  “Stop it,” Lexie said. “Stop screaming and listen to me. A cage is in the other room and handcuffs in the cabinet. It all has something to do with security. The floor has to be a security system. Maybe we can turn it off, if we can just use our heads instead of fighting with each other.”

  Burke opened his mouth to say something when a faint thud sounded behind one of the locked doors, followed by silence and more silence. They stared at each other. The calls of insects and the wind in the leaves filtered into the quiet.

  “What was that?” Lexie whispered.

  “It was in the woods,” Travis said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she said. “It was behind that door.”

  “It was outside,” Travis insisted. “It was a deer.”

  She shook her head. “No, it wasn’t. It was in here.”

  Burke looked as though all the blood had drained from his face. “Those doors are locked?” he asked. When they nodded, he turned to his sister. “It had to be in the woods. I want you to go back to the city and call 911.”

  Lexie shook her head. “There’s no way we’re leaving you here.”

  “We have to face reality, Lexie. Get out of the park and call 911 and tell them I fell in the rocks. They’ll send the fire department.”

  “We’re not leaving you here,” she said again. “We’re just not doing it.”

  “You have to,” Burke said.

  Blue light shone on their faces.

  “There are three of us,” she argued. “Travis can stay and I’ll go back.”

  “It’s not safe for one person to go back,” Burke said. “It’s too dark and it’s too far. Who’s going to call 911 when you break your ankle?”

  Travis turned his face away while Lexie and her brother made their worried goodbyes. Then he crawled out of the black triangle, waited for her, and headed toward the creek. The blue light inside the hatch dwindled, for the longest time still recognizable as a doorway, until it turned into a tiny blue speck bobbing between the tree trunks. Then the little light blinked out. They’d reached the other side of the camouflage force field. Moments later, the gorge yawned before their feet. They stumbled down the rocky hillside, over the cold creek, and through a nightmare of briars back to the path.

  Travis looked back. “We’ll never find this place again.”

  “We can leave a marker, a pile of rocks or something.”

  “The leaves will just cover it up.” He sat down and began to pull off his shoes and socks. “Take off your socks.”

  She stared at him. “My socks?”

  “That’s right. We’ll tie them to the trees.”

  She sat down beside him and took off her shoes and socks. When the socks turned out to be too short to tie together, he ripped the fabric and hung them like flags in the underbrush. Then they retraced their steps down the twisting path. Black trees and black rocks rose out of the black hills. Lexie stumbled. When he caught her arm, their eyes met for a magical moment, and then she broke the spell to brush herself off.

  They set out side by side in silence into the next valley. The moon finally shone through the clouds, a golden lamp moving in a great arc across the vast black sky. Its radiance fell over the dark creek and lit up the overgrown path. They went on in the cold for so long that Travis wondered if they would ever reach the end of the woods. He began to long for simple things, hot coffee and a room with lamps and heat.

  “We must be near Connecticut Avenue,” she said. “I can hear traffic.”

  “And I can see lights,” he told her. “I see streetlights.”

  More lights shone through the branches. The lights grew larger, longer, and changed in front of th
eir eyes to dozens of windows. They ran over the top of the hill and down the last leg of the path behind the sprawling stone walls of Buchanan House. Lamplight from the lower windows streamed over the dark grass.

  “We made it,” Lexie cried, but he caught her arm and pulled her behind a shaggy fir tree. Despite the cold, someone stood on one of the balconies two floors down from the roof. Soft light from the open door cast the figure in shadow, but it was impossible to mistake her huge silhouette.

  “It’s her,” Lexie whispered.

  “That has to be her place,” he said, fascinated. He could see paintings, too distant to make out, a lamp with a black shade, the back of a contemporary sofa, and a distinctive oriental wall hanging with three elephants.

  “What’s she doing?” Lexie said.

  “I don’t know. Watching the woods, I think. We have to go another way.”

  They crept through the trees, over a small wrought-iron fence, and onto the lawn of the condominium next door, where they kept to the wall. Wisps of fog were beginning to creep over the ground. Once they reached the public sidewalk, they were back on Connecticut Avenue with its streetlights and traffic.

  “A phone,” he said.

  She stared at him. “The pub has one.”

  They ran toward Sullivan’s, which was packed with people, and squeezed into the old-fashioned, dark wood phone booth by the bar. Travis leaned in to listen. Lexie called 911 and was transferred to fire and rescue.

  “My brother’s trapped in Rock Creek Park,” she began. “He fell in some rocks and he hurt himself… his foot... no, it’s not life-threatening… what do you mean, you can’t send somebody right now?” She twisted around. “Look, just listen to me. He’s trapped inside this… aircraft that crashed in the woods.” Her words rushed out as she broke down. “I know I said rocks, but it’s an aircraft… because I didn’t know how to explain it.”

  She was blowing everything. Travis reached for the phone, but she turned away.