A Plate Of Cookies And A Shortcut

 

In the morning, we packed up our sleeping bags and headed to Mrs. Steele’s house. I wanted to check on Lou and maybe get Bubby to come along with us. 

No one was home there.

Knocking had no effect. Doug tried the kitchen door and it was unlocked. He opened it and called out to Mrs. Steele. No answer. The house felt empty and dark. He stepped cautiously through the opening and Elvin and I followed.

The kitchen looked ok. No obvious signs of trouble. There were signs of cooking making. A couple of pans and bowls were in the sink. A large plate of cookies covered in saran wrap was on the counter.

I slipped silently into the living room, followed by the brothers. It looked ok too. I could see that Lou had been sleeping on the sofa. There were folded blankets and a pillow piled on one end of it.

I was about to speak when I heard a vehicle come up the drive and stop. We stared at each other! No one made a sound.

Four men in green uniforms crowded into Mrs. Steeles clean little kitchen and came through into the other room. They were large and not a bit friendly looking. They were armed, and they searched all over the house, upstairs and downstairs. Then all four went down into the basement.

They stood around the kitchen, while we waited without motion or sound, watching them. At last, the guy who must have been in charge said “let’s check outside. I’d like to throw this bunch in with the other two and that dog.” So, they looked all around the outside of the house and into the garden shed. I thought they were angry that we were being so hard to locate. It didn’t make sense to them.

“This is going to be more trouble for Wilson than it is for us. We may as well get back to the shop and tell him he’s going to have to come up with something better than us driving around and missing them every time,” boss guy said. “At least we have the kid and the old lady. But I want that Doug Simpson guy. He’s trouble and he’s going to be more trouble if we don’t stop him. The other two are just collateral baggage.”
The men stood around eating cookies for a few minutes, got into the van, and drove off toward Maysville. They didn’t recover the plate.

When they were gone, I replaced the saran wrap. Then I uncovered the cookies again and said, “we better eat them. We need to eat something.”

We ate the cookies, but I felt sick. Poor soft little Lou and Mrs. Imogene Steele along with old Bubby were in very great trouble.

Doug said they had to be in the P-Sec holding tank in Maysville. “Where else would they take them?” We had to stage a rescue. What else could we do. None of us knew how though. We thought we were going to have to walk the six miles out to Maysville along the old surface road over the slough. It would be night when we got there.

“Since it seems they can’t see us, maybe we can slide past them and get Roops’ mom and Lou and Bubs out of jail, if they are still alive...” said Elvin. He always seemed to sum up a situation, like that was his job in life. A bottom-line kind of guy.

We left the sleeping bags in the kitchen, under the table, and prepared to start the hike.

Standing out on the driveway, something caught my eye. I elbowed Doug and said, “what’s that?”, pointing at a small bluish glowing circle of light poised in midair a dozen feet away up toward the back of the house. I felt no sensation of alarm, just curiosity. It was beguiling in a way. Welcoming. It grew. The edges wavered and flickered. It was about four feet across when we could see a sort of green landscape inside, receding far into the distance.

The brothers and I looked on as it grew larger and settled down to ground level, as if to welcome us inside. I remembered then what Bubby had told us. This was a gate, and we wouldn’t see one unless we were supposed to see it and it had been sent for us.

I don’t know. Looking back, it seems like it was a rash thing we did, but we walked into the gate, trusting that this would work out for the best. As we passed the flickering edges, what we saw changed. It was quiet here and softly peaceful. We seemed to be in a sort of parkland. There was a trail on the grass and far down the trail another flickering ring of bluish light. As we walked it seemed like we covered an unusual amount of space in just a few steps.

I thought I saw three Lights up in the brilliant sky, like bubbles. Watching, I guessed.

In what seemed like just a couple of minutes Doug and Elvin, and I came to the end of this trail and looked out of the open gate into a less pleasant world. We stepped out onto pavement. It was a late afternoon in Maysville and facing us was the local headquarters of P-Sec. The lot where cars had been parked was empty. No one was selling or buying new cars these days. We walked down the lot toward the building.

I looked back at the gate. It drifted upward and diminished in size until it was just a little blue circle like a bubble in the sunlight.

Now it was up to us. I could see from here the large door that used to open into a new car dealership in the past before everything changed.



One fat guy in a green uniform was sitting at a desk in the old show room. He seemed almost asleep, with his head sinking down onto his chest. No one else was visible. Apparently, he was all the security they needed.

The big glass door was not locked, so we slipped inside. I knew Lou and Mrs. Steele had to be here and presumably Bubby also. The question was…where.

Bubby was a weird dog in more ways than one. He knew things he had no business knowing. I think he knew we were there, for I heard a distinct sharp bark back in what should have been the repair shop.

Security man twitched but didn’t wake. No one else appeared. But now we had a direction.

Link so far:
In the tenth year of the pandemonium.docx