Killer Summer

He pointed to the treetops. The flashlight beam had turned yet again and was once again coming up the hill from behind them.

The tall man-he looked like an old cowboy-wore blue jeans, boots, and a light-colored long-sleeved shirt. He stopped at the top of the stairs.

“Over here!” he called out loudly in the direction of the flashlight beam.

The beam froze, illuminating the tops of trees. Then it began to advance again up the hill, directly toward Kevin and Summer.

Kevin tugged on Summer’s arm, making sure he had her attention. He pointed to a pair of doors cut into the rock at the base of the lodge, either a garage or storage area, by the look of it.

He drew her close and whispered. “Follow me, fast and low, straight for those doors.”

“He’ll help us!” She meant the cowboy.

The crunching of undergrowth grew ever louder. Whoever was following them was close now.

“Over here!” the cowboy called out. He headed down the stairs.

The lawn was now empty.

“Trust me,” Kevin said to Summer.

He pulled her, and she followed. Together, they ran toward the lodge, reaching the shadows sheltering the two doors.

“Okay?” he asked, panting.

She nodded.

He felt for the door latch. It engaged, and the heavy door sagged open.

“There are stairs over here!” the cowboy called out. The flashlight beam paused briefly.

“It’s going to be dark in there,” Kevin warned.

Summer nodded.

“No noise,” he added.

“So, shut up!” she said.

“Whatever…”

Kevin slipped inside, Summer followed. He took one look around, then eased the door shut, blocking out the light, and gently lowered the latch in place.

The space smelled of cedar and grass, oil and dust. He slipped the flashlight under his shirt to mute its beam, then quickly flashed it on and off to get his bearings. They saw a pair of sawhorses, a workbench, trash bins, tarps, a small tractor, a skimobile or ATV-maybe both-and extension cords, ropes, and tools hanging from a pegboard on the right wall. There was a stack of firewood against the back wall. Steps at the far left of the room led to a door. He determined a route for them to follow.

“We should have stayed in the woods,” she said in a hot whisper. “Or said something to that guy.”

“We’ve got to get word to someone,” he said.

He pulled out his cell phone, turned it on, silenced its ringer.

“No bars,” he said, angrily jamming the phone back in his pocket.

“I’ve got to pee,” she said.

“You’ve got to hold it,” he said.

“There is no way I’m going to hold it.”

“So, pee.”

“Yeah, right.”

“I’ll turn my back.”

“I am not peeing in the dirt.”

“I am not dealing with this.”

“There’s got to be a toilet in the house.”

“Why don’t you go ask if you can use it?”

She huffed at him.

“We’re somewhere near the Middle Fork,” he said. “There’re a half dozen of these places, max, in a couple thousand square miles of wilderness. There could be a neighbor a half mile away. But it might be forty miles or more.”

“That’s impossible. We were in the air, what, like ten minutes? Fifteen? How far could we have gone?”

“At three hundred miles an hour, you do the math. The point is, all these places have radios. Maybe that cowboy dude lives here all alone. We need that radio. So, come on.”

Kevin reached out for Summer in the dark and found her arm. She didn’t resist him as he led her along his newly memorized route. He moved slowly, inching his feet out ahead and avoiding knocking over any of the objects he encountered. As the toe of his ru

He tried the handle. It wasn’t locked.

He couldn’t see a thing, but he could feel Summer trembling. She squeezed his arm, wanting him to reconsider.

He found her ear and whispered, “Better odds if they don’t catch both of us. There’s a tarp in the corner. Hide under it.” He tried leading her back down the stairs.

“No way,” she hissed, resisting.

“Way,” he said. “I may need you to save me.”

“Right…”

“Remember, you’re the prize, not me. We can’t let you get caught.”

He eased her down the steps, found their way along the stack of firewood, and reached the tarp. It smelled pleasantly of oiled canvas, triggering memories of his father and camping trips.

He sat her down. “Stay here until I come back for you.”

“And what if you don’t?” She sounded angry.

“If we get separated,” he said, not answering her directly, “then we meet at the far end of the runway near the jet. You still have your key. There are radios on the jet as well.”

He pulled the tarp over her head before she could reply. He tucked it around her. He flicked the light once to make sure she was covered, then waited a few seconds for his eyes to adjust to the dark again.

“… ud… uck…” Her voice muffled by the tarp. She’d either said “Good luck” or “Get fucked.”

Kevin headed back to the door that led into the lodge.

54

Walt paced the Incident Command Center. His father had come through with the last-known whereabouts and vectors for the jet. The Mountain Home Air Force Base refused to admit they had radar capable of seeing into the mountains, so none of the information that Walt was given was official. And, since it wasn’t official, Walt wasn’t supposed to know that a pair of fighters had been scrambled to find the jet and shoot it down, if necessary, because it had been stolen. Walt reminded his father that he’d delayed reporting the jet as stolen in order to avoid what to him was a predictable response. His father had told him he couldn’t have it both ways, and to meet him in sixty minutes when he landed.

Evelyn Holmes, a civilian employee of Walt’s who typically ran numbers, approached Walt.

“Evelyn,” he greeted her. He had no time to discuss budget but didn’t want to seem dismissive. As a civilian, she had no business being in the Incident Command Center, but he wasn’t about to throw her out.

“Word is, you’re looking for someone to calculate a flight path.”

“As it’s been explained to me,” he said, not wanting to insult her, “it’s complicated stuff. Speed in the air, speed over ground, rate of descent, the fact that the engines are constantly losing thrust…”

“May I take a look at the data?”

“Sure. I don’t mean this the way it sounds, but, from what Steven Garman says, it is rocket science.”

“I was awarded my Phil-D in astrophysics from Imperial College, London.”

“You have a Ph.D.,” he said.

“And a master’s in material sciences.”

She was working for him for just a few dollars more than minimum wage.

“This valley…” he said.

“My son wanted to compete at the national level in snowboarding. His father and I made some sacrifices.”

“But you’ve been here-”

“Six years, yes. He broke his ankle and blew out his knee in his second season. His snowboarding career was over. But we all fell in love with this place. No way we were going back to southern California.”

He showed her what little information they had on the Learjet.

“I need to predict possible airports and landing strips,” he said.

Evelyn gave a cursory look at the data and grunted. “Okay, I’m on it,” she said.

A deputy knocked and entered the room. He hesitated at the threshold under the glare of everyone’s attention.

“Well?” Walt called out.

“EOC has a report of a UFO… That’s right, Sheriff, you heard me right… Seen south, southeast of Stanley. A yellow light, not ru