After the last trailer, the lights in the theater dimmed. Gibson gripped the armrests and tried to quell his rising panic. His foot started tapping, but he couldn’t stop it. He stared up at the screen, willing the movie to begin before he lost his nerve.
Since his visit to Longman Farm, he’d been catching a movie at an Arlington multiplex in the afternoons after his shift. If nothing else, it gave him an opportunity to practice controlling his fear of the dark. It embarrassed him. He knew he had other, more serious psychological issues, but panicking every time the lights went out felt foolish. A child’s fear. Not that knowing it was irrational did anything to lessen its power over him. Through clenched teeth, he focused on slowing his breathing and holding his foot still. When the projector finally flared to life, his body uncoiled like it had been yanked free of an open power line. He went limp in his seat, exhaled hard, and took a long drink from his huge soda to wet his parched throat.
Not bad, he thought.
Actually, he felt pretty good in general. Since he’d begun prepping in earnest for Damon Ogden, things had improved steadily. Each day a little better. His head had calmed. He rarely saw Duke or Bear. Now that he had a project, he didn’t need them as much. Being outdoors barely affected him anymore. Even interacting with people was getting easier, and it no longer hurt to be touched. Duke had promised that if Gibson followed through with their plan, things would get better. So far, so good. His revenge gave him a sense of purpose that drove him. Its planning, organization, and execution felt important in a way that washing dishes for twelve dollars an hour never could.
He’d been keeping late hours, so once the movie started, Gibson made himself comfortable and took a nap. He wasn’t there for the movie anyway. It was all part of the plan, and he needed to establish an alibi. Not that he thought anyone was watching. Not now anyway. But afterward, he’d need a verifiable routine. So he made a point of buying something from the concessions line and chatting amicably with the bored staff behind the counter. To make certain they remembered him, he’d twice let his large soda slip out of his hand at the counter. No one ever forgot a serial klutz.
After the movie, Gibson drove to the outskirts of Damon Ogden’s neighborhood. Ogden lived alone in a house in Vienna, Virginia, just beyond the sprawl of Tysons Corner. A quiet neighborhood dominated by young families. A place where people felt safe, let their guards down. In the Yukon, Gibson changed into the same distinctive running gear and took his nightly jog past Ogden’s house. It gave him the opportunity to scout the neighborhood and plan for contingencies.
The weatherman called it a polar vortex. Gibson called it camouflage. At night, the thermometer had been dipping into the teens, driving all but the hardiest off the streets. The handful of brave souls that he did meet, Gibson greeted with a friendly wave. No one questioned the neoprene hood that covered everything but his eyes. He wanted to be remembered but not recognized. The best way not to seem out of the ordinary was not to be. When the time came, Gibson would be just a hard-core neighbor out for a run. Plus, he really needed the exercise. It felt good to be able to run more than a block without puking into the bushes.
His last stop each night was the abandoned power plant. It had been a godsend. Duke had suggested it when they’d first started planning, but they’d had to wait until Gibson’s release to make sure it still stood.
Duke had been chief of staff to Senator Benjamin Lombard when the plant had closed. It had remained a political hot potato in Northern Virginia for more than twenty years. The original proposal had called for the plant to be demolished to make way for new development, which in real-estate-hungry Northern Virginia would ordinarily have been a no-brainer. However, no one had calculated the expense of removing the asbestos, lead paint, mercury, and other hazardous materials. Standard demolition would have had serious environmental implications for the surrounding residential neighborhoods, which meant time and money. One development company after another backed away from the project. So there the old plant remained, undisturbed in all its dilapidated glory. Neighbors paid it no mind, and it had become an all-but-invisible eyesore.
It may have been perfect, but he still had a lot to do if he wanted to make his deadline. He worked until after two a.m., as he did every night. It was grueling, but Gibson enjoyed the work. For the first few days, his back had ached like he’d been through a workout, which he supposed he had. Combined with his running, he felt like he was relearning how to use his body. It was a satisfying feeling. Then, exhausted, he stumbled home to his basement room and slept on the floor until it was time to go to work at the diner.
The next night, after a particularly awful movie involving a white family, demonic possession, and a haunted house, Gibson found a small trailer hitched to the back of his Yukon. The first delivery, right on schedule. Swonger had held up his end. Not wanting to leave his cargo unattended, Gibson skipped his evening run and drove straight to the plant.
A high chain-link fence overgrown with vines encircled the property, but the gate was wide open. Anything of value had long since been removed. A security service drove the property twice a week looking for indications that local kids were partying there. Security never went inside the plant, though, and as long as Gibson kept a low profile and covered his tracks, they never would.
He drove around to the back of the plant and backed the Yukon up to a basement entrance to unload the trailer. He checked the packing tape that he’d put over the basement door’s seams. It was undisturbed; no one had been there. The door’s lock had broken long before, and it had been padlocked shut with a length of chain. Gibson had removed the padlock with bolt cutters and replaced it with a similar model.
Inside, he flipped on the lights. One of his first tasks had been to replace most of the lightbulbs, this after he’d discovered to his delight that the caretakers still paid the plant’s utilities. He went down a flight of stairs and along a narrow, dank service corridor. Ducking under a corroded pipe, he made a left and then a right, moving deeper into the abandoned building. It had taken a whole night’s work to clear all the debris, but it had been worth it. He couldn’t imagine a more private location for a hundred miles. And what he had in mind for Damon Ogden depended on privacy.
His improvised workbench was just as he’d left it. He took a key from a hook and unlocked the bathroom door. It needed reinforcing. One of a long list of modifications to make to the eight-by-ten bathroom. Swonger’s delivery would see to that. But first things first; he went back topside and spent the rest of the night unloading and organizing his new equipment. He had a lot of work left to do if he wanted to be ready by Friday night.