Fifty-Two

Tad eased his squad car into the plant’s parking lot. Heavy gusts blasted across the empty asphalt, carrying with them bits of straw and ruined husks of corn. Ribbons of rain cascaded here and there, coming and going in sudden sheets. A line of fat raindrops passed over the cruiser, from front to back, with a machine-gun cadence. Beyond the parking lot, he could hear waves of wind ripping through the cornfields surrounding the plant. He peered out at the blackness over the corn, half hoping for, half dreading, the sight of a daggerlike funnel cloud. But he could see nothing.

The sheriff had said he suspected Andy Cahill and his friends of terrorizing the Higgs homestead. Privately, Tad thought Hazen’s own son Brad and his gang were the more likely suspects. Scaring little kids, egging buildings, was more their style. The son would never be the man his father was. Tad wondered what he’d do if he ran into the sheriff’s son outside the plant. Now, that could prove to be more than a little awkward.

He eased the car up to the low outline of the plant and stopped, engine idling. Even through the closed windows, the wind screeched and moaned like a beast in pain. The plant was dim against the murk, sunken in the corn, dark and deserted.

Looking at the low, sinister building, what had seemed like a routine check was beginning to seem less appealing to Tad. Why the heck hadn’t Gro-Bain hired another night watchman? It wasn’t fair that the burden of private security fell on the sheriff’s department.

Tad passed a hand through his closely cropped hair. No help for it now. He’d just do a quick check to make sure none of the doors had been forced, then he’d check Smit Ludwig’s place and head on back to the station.

He cracked the cruiser door open, and the wind pushed it back at him with an angry howl. Pulling his hat down and raising his collar, he pushed harder at the door, then ducked out, face against the storm, making for the loading docks. As he ran, he could hear something banging in the wind. Reaching the shelter of the building, he pushed his hat back on his head and switched on his flashlight, then made his way along the cinderblock wall. The banging got louder.

It was when he reached the top of the loading dock stairs that his light revealed an open door, swinging and banging on broken hinges.

Shit.

Tad stood there, the beam of the flashlight playing over the shattered lock and mangled hinges. Somebody had really done a number on it. Normally, he would call for backup. But where was he going to get backup on a night like this? Any law enforcement officers that weren’t going into the cave after the killer would be out working the tornado watch. Maybe he should just forget about it, come back in the morning.

He imagined explaining that decision to the darkening face of Sheriff Hazen and decided it was not an acceptable option. Hazen was constantly harping on him that he needed more pluck, more initiative.

This was nothing, really, to be concerned about. The killer was safely bottled up in the cave. Kids like Brad Hazen were always breaking into the plant for fun, even when the night watchman was there. It had happened several times before, most notably last Halloween—half a dozen hoodlums from Deeper who thought it would be fun to T.P. their rival town’s major employer.

Tad felt a wash of irritation. It was a hell of a night to pull crap like that. He pushed through the broken door, making as much noise as possible, and shone his light around the receiving area.

“This is the police,” he called out in his sternest voice. “Please identify yourselves.”

The only answer was the echo of his own voice coming back at him from the blackness.

Moving forward carefully, letting his light drift from left to right, he exited the loading bay and walked along the catwalk leading into the plant proper. It was very dark and smelled strongly of chlorine, and as he walked beneath a partition he felt, rather than saw, the ceiling suddenly rise to a great height. He paused to run the beam of his light along the conveyor belt that snaked through the plant like an endless metal road, back and forth, up and down, on at least three different levels. Emerging first from a small, tiled room attached to the stunning area, the “line” ran through several freestanding structures within the plant, buildings within buildings: the Scalder, the Plucker, the Box Washer. Tad remembered their names from his previous visits. It was the kind of thing you didn’t forget too quickly.

He shone his light back toward the tiled room. This small structure, the first within the plant, was the Blood Room. Its door was ajar.

“This is the police,” he rapped out a second time, advancing a few more steps. Outside, the shriek of the wind answered faintly.

Transferring his flashlight to his left hand, Tad unsnapped the leather guard on his service holster, let his palm rest lightly on the handle of his piece. Not that there would be any call for it, of course. But it felt reassuring, just the same.

He turned and shone his light around again, licking the beam off the gleaming assembly line, off the tubes and pressure hoses that snaked up the gray-painted walls. The plant was vast, cavernous, and his light penetrated less than a third of it. But the place was silent, and what he could see looked decidedly empty.

Tad felt a certain relief. The kids had probably run for it at the first sign of his cruiser.

He glanced at his watch: almost quarter after nine. Hazen would be at the sheriff’s office by now, preparing for the ten-o’clock raid. He’d followed through, and found nothing. Any further time here would be wasted. He’d check out Smit Ludwig’s place, then get back.

It was as he turned to leave that he heard the noise.

He paused, listening. There it was again: a kind of giggle, or wet snicker. It seemed to come from the Blood Room, queerly distorted by the stainless steel floor and tiled walls.

Christ, the kids were hiding in there.

He shone his flashlight at the open door of the Blood Room. The conveyor belt emerged from a wide porthole above the door, dangling hooks winking in his beam, throwing cruel misshapen shadows over the entrance.

“All right,” he said, “come out of there. All of you.”

Another snort.

“I’m going to count to three, and if you don’t come out you’ll be in serious trouble, and that’s a promise.”

This was ridiculous, wasting his time like this in the middle of a tornado warning. He was going to throw the book at those kids. Deeper scum, he was sure of it now.

“One.”

No response.

“Two.”

He waited, but there was nothing but silence from the half-open door.

“Three.” Tad moved swiftly and purposefully toward the door, his boots echoing on the slick tile floor. He kicked the door wide with a hollow boom that echoed crazily around the vast interior of the plant.

Feet set apart, he swept the Blood Room with his light, the beam shining off the polished steel, the circular drain in the middle of the floor, the gleaming tile walls.

Empty. He walked into the middle of the room and stood there, the smell of bleach washing over him.

There was a rattle overhead, and Tad quickly angled his light upward. A sudden furious sound, a clashing of metal. The hooks dangling from the conveyor line began to bounce and swing wildly, and his light just caught a dark shape scuttling along the line, disappearing out the porthole above the door.

“Hey! You!” Tad ran back to the door, stopped. Flashed his light. Nothing but the swinging and creaking of the line as it moved away into blackness.

No leniency, no soft touch, this time: Tad was going to lock these kids up, teach them a lesson.

He let the beam of his light linger on the line. It was still swinging and creaking, and it looked as if the kids had climbed along it through a curtain of plastic flaps into the next structure, an oversized stainless steel box. The Scalder.