He glanced back down at Grace and she was staring at him hard. False alerts weren’t uncommon. It happened. But not with Grace. He saw her eyes slip to his daypack. She was ready for her reward, getting impatient.
Creed took another look around, this time turning slowly and trying to take in the surroundings in small clips. The throbbing over his eye was causing it to twitch. Maybe it and the fog were making him miss something. He could feel Grace watching him.
Then suddenly she stood back up and casually strolled over to the pile of rubbish. It looked like someone’s garbage dump with twigs and vines growing over it. There were pieces of cardboard, an old sofa cushion, cans and bottles, a tangle of rope and wet newspapers, along with other unrecognizable musty throwaways.
The tang was a mixture of smells, one of which could be human decomposition. Was Mrs. Hamlet’s body buried under this pile of garbage?
That’s when something stirred beneath that mess.
Creed jerked back a step, but Grace’s tail started wagging. She stuck her nose into the pile and a hand nudged its way out, reaching to touch Grace.
Creed dropped to his knees and started grabbing at pieces, pulling and tugging. Grace licked at the dirty fingers. Before he finished uncovering her, the old woman shifted from lying on her side. She was filthy—mud streaked her face. Strands of garbage dangled from her hair. Her clothes looked like part of the rubbish and so did her small body of bones.
She sat up on her own without Creed’s help. He didn’t want to alarm her by touching her, so he tried to use his eyes to look for cuts and blood. He scanned her arms and legs to check if he could see any bones protruding.
“Mrs. Hamlet, are you okay?”
It seemed like a silly question to ask a woman who had been under a pile of rubbish for two nights.
Her eyes were bright and anxious and didn’t leave Grace as she petted the dog with muddy, blue-veined hands. She stroked her from head to tail over and over.
“Aren’t you the prettiest thing,” she cooed, and Grace continued to wag, even forgetting about her pink elephant for the moment.
Then suddenly the old woman looked up at Creed as if she’d only just noticed him. “What in the world took you so long?”
32.
Daniel Tate lay on his belly and watched from inside a bent metal air duct. He was proud of how quietly he had moved in the dark, the night vision goggles providing him views that the intruder didn’t have beyond the stream from the handheld strobe light. Only one time did the metal creak beneath his weight, and he worried that it might crash down. The spaceman below didn’t seem concerned, glancing up only briefly before going back to his mission.
Tate’s first thought when he saw the oversized white suit was of a spaceman, because it covered the trespasser completely from the hood and glass shield all the way to the black rubber boots and gloves. But he knew it was a hazmat suit.
If he pushed back the paranoia and anxiety that pounded in his chest, Tate could almost convince himself that the spaceman wasn’t there to destroy him. Instead, he seemed more interested in the battered metal cabinet and the black suitcase he’d found in the rubble.
The spaceman set the strobe light on a pile of debris where he could work with the light shining down. He opened a combination lock on the metal cabinet. Carefully he reached around inside until he found what he was looking for. Then his focus turned to the black suitcase.
Several times the spaceman tried to lift the suitcase, but it was too heavy. He then tried to drag it but there was no clear trail. The case made it only a foot or two before getting hung up in debris.
From his perch, Tate noticed digital numbers flashing on the side of the case, and a small red light blinking like the suitcase had a pulse. The spaceman fidgeted with the digital numbers, making them tick up and down until there was a loud click. With the click the light changed to green and the spaceman was able to open the lid.
Tate wanted to squirm and reposition himself to see over the man’s shoulder. He was soaking wet with perspiration, hot from being inside the metal air duct. Still, he wanted to see what was inside the case. But in seconds the spaceman took what he wanted, stuffed something into a case of his own, and snapped the suitcase shut. Both cases lit up, each with a pulsing red light and with the same freaky rhythm that made them seem as if they were part of the same living organism.
Then the spaceman did something Tate didn’t expect. He set aside the second case. Then he shoved the metal cabinet until it toppled on top of the first one. The cabinet’s contents fell out, metal striking metal and glass shattering, burying the case.
Satisfied, the spaceman swatted a hand in front of his face shield, then grabbed his strobe light and left in the direction he had come.
Tate watched him maneuver his way down the tunnel until the light turned a corner and disappeared.