Holes in the Ground Read online

  “Jerry.”

  “Okay, Jerry. My name is Sun, and this is my husband, Andy.”

  “Sun? Funny name.”

  “I’m Vietnamese,” Sun added.

  Jerry nodded and smiled. “I like Italians.”

  “Of course you do,” Sun said, as if his reply made sense. She squatted down and put a hand on his forehead. “Temp slightly elevated, skin clammy, sclera pink.”

  “Sclera?” Andy asked.

  “The whites of the eye.”

  “So he’s just stoned?”

  “Hell yeah!” Jerry hooted.

  “Could be something more than pot,” Sun said.

  “So we call 911.”

  Jerry shook his head. “No cops, dude. I’m straight.”

  “Do you like coffee, Jerry?”

  “Are tribbles born pregnant?”

  Sun looked at Andy. He gave her a nod, then shrugged.

  Sun figured out the K-cup coffee machine while Andy sat with the boy in silence. His best guess was that the lad was late teens to early twenties. He was wearing jeans and Nikes and his faded Star Trek T-shirt did indeed have a signature on it, done in black marker. A button pinned to his chest read: “PROBE ME HARDER”. The boy’s greasy shoulder-length brown hair looked like it hadn’t been washed in weeks.

  Sun handed the boy a steaming mug.

  Andy asked, “So, Jerry, where did you get the drugs? Friends?”

  He shook his head. “I’m here alone.”

  Sun looked sad. “Alone? You came all the way from England on your own?”

  “Nobody else would come. I only have one good friend and he… well, things are messed up between us right now. It’s a total arse ache.”

  “What a sweet expression.”

  “I got the gear from Batman.”

  “You got your drugs from Batman?” Andy asked. “Does Commissioner Gordon know?”

  “Some guy dressed as Batman. Cosplay, dude. The Bats was hanging with some Gundum manga otaku—real anoraks—and we stoked up the Graffix. But the gear was minging, man. I’m tripping my bollocks off.”

  “I’m fluent in two dozen languages and have no idea what you just said.”

  Jerry made a face. “Cosplay. Otaku. It’s the CCC this week.”

  “CCC?” Andy and Sun said simultaneously.

  “The Comic and Conspiracy Convention. Media geeks get together with all the conspiracy theory nuts. A lot of people are dressed up like comics and movies and shit. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

  “We’re here on our honeymoon,” Sun said.

  “Oh. That’s cool. You guys into anime?”

  “No,” Andy answered.

  “How about conspiracy theories? John Lennon being shot by the IRA in cahoots with the MI5? Project Cumulus in Gibraltar, British government trying to control the weather? It’s a real mindscrew when you see guys in tinfoil hats talking to guys dressed like X-Men.”

  “I bet.” Andy looked at his wife, giving her an imploring can we get him out of here now expression.

  “And the aliens crashing at Roswell, New Mexico? All the secret shit going on at Area 51? You know those were all a cover-up, right? America is even worse than Britain for covering shit up. You guys are the kings of burying secrets. Area 51 is the least of it.”

  Andy felt his jaw clench. Sun’s demeanor changed from cordial to dangerous.

  “What do you mean, Jerry?” Sun asked, her tone low and even.

  “People think the US is hiding aliens. That’s bollocks. They’re hiding the devil. Had him in a secret underground lab.” He sipped from his mug. “This coffee is good. What flavor is it?”

  “Coffee flavor.” Andy leaned in close to Jerry, measuring his words. “What do you know about this secret underground lab?”

  “Just what I read on the Internet. Compound was called Samhain. Bunch of people died. It was tied to that nuclear explosion, the one they called a power plant accident. Any idiot knows nuclear reactors don’t explode, they melt down. Get this—they say they called the devil Bub. Like Beelzebub.”

  Sun was on him before Andy could stop her, the ceramic knife at the boy’s neck.

  “Who are you and who sent you? Tell us, now!”

  Then there was another knock at the door.

  Chapter Two

  Sun turned in the direction of the knock. She looked panicked, and Andy knew he shared the expression.

  Their past together was… complicated. They had lived through something they could never share with others. Something involving the very things Jerry was talking about.

  Something terrifying.

  Andy moved quickly to the door and peeked out through the peep hole.

  Two men in black suits and sunglasses.

  The Men in Black from the movies, geeks dressing up as Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones?

  Or the real men in black, from the Secret Service?

  “Are you going to cut my throat?” Jerry asked curiously.

  Sun ignored him, focusing on her husband. “Is it…?”

  Andy nodded.

  The phone rang, startling them both. Andy had a sick feeling he knew who it was.

  Sun left Jerry, who looked bewildered, and picked up the phone. She spoke in a monotone voice. “We already did our part.” Pause. “We’re on our honeymoon.” Pause. “Believe me, I understand national security, but I don’t see why he’d be needed. We were told we could get on with our lives, Mr. President.”

  “Whoa,” Jerry said. “Is that the man?”

  Sun hung up. Andy felt his stomach clench. “Let them in,” she said. “We don’t have a choice.”

  She was correct. Among the many things Sun and Andy had signed in order to return to civilian life after their tenure at Samhain—oaths and pledges and vows and confidentiality agreements and NDAs swearing to never reveal what they knew—there was a price for being left alone. At any time, they could be called back into service.

  Fighting the US government was like fighting the tide.

  Besides, Andy did feel a smidgeon of responsibility for what happened at Samhain, and he knew Sun did as well.

  Good people had died.

  Worse, something very bad had escaped.

  His hand shaking, he let the Secret Service in. They closed the door behind themselves.

  The one on the right said, “Good morning, Mr. Dennison. Mrs. Dennison.”

  “It’s Dennison-Jones,” Andy said, feeling deflated. “We just got married.”

  “We know. I’m Agent Johnson. This is Agent Williams. Who’s that?”

  “He’s not with you?” Sun asked.

  “I’m Jerry.” He stood up, and suddenly didn’t look stoned anymore. “I run the Stop Government Secrets website. Is this about Samhain?”

  The agents exchanged a glance. Then Agent Williams said, “Get out of here, kid, before you get hurt.”

  “The people have a right to know! It’s all true, isn’t it? All the rumors! All the guesses! You really do have Satan locked up! I knew I could prove this! My site is going viral, bitches!”

  Agent Williams calmly reached into his pocket and removed a taser.

  “Is that a taser?” Jerry asked.

  Agent Williams shot Jerry in the chest. The boy jerked and began to convulse.

  For a few seconds, Andy dispassionately watched Jerry flop about like a fish on a jetty. When the volts were cut, Jerry lay still with a faint smell of ozone hanging in the room. Andy turned to agent Johnson. “We’re not going. We’re on our honeymoon.”

  “We’re not giving you a choice. It’s only for a few days, and you’ll be well compensated for your time, Mr. Dennison.”

  “Dennison-Jones. Does Sun have to go?”

  “That’s up to her.”

  Andy said, “You’re not going” at the same time she said “I’m going.”

  They had a stare down, and Andy blinked first. He always did.

  Could this honeymoon get any worse?

  “What about the kid?” Sun ask
ed.

  “I want to go, too!” he said, half-whine and half-croak.

  “Who is he?” Agent Williams asked.

  “We have no idea,” Andy answered. “He knocked on our door a few minutes before you did.”

  Agent Johnson squatted down next to Jerry, grabbed his hand, and pressed it against a small, electronic device that looked like a smart phone.

  “Are you reading my fingerprint?” Jerry rasped. “I heard about these things. We’re just one step away from a one world government planting ID chips in our arms to track our movements.”

  Agent Johnson eyed the screen of his device. “Jeremy Preston. UK citizen. Wanted for major theft. NSA has a file on him as well.”

  “They do?” Jerry sat up, eyes wide. “Cool! I didn’t think anyone was paying attention to me. Hey, how do I get these little electric barbs out of my chest?”

  “Pull, really hard,” said Agent Williams.

  He did that and yelped. “Getting tazed sucks.”

  “That’s the point. What are you doing here, Jerry?”

  “I’m here to interview Andy and Sun. I’m the one who flew them to San Diego.”

  The free plane tickets. Andy winced. He’d known it was too good to be true. After Samhain they couldn’t count on anything being a coincidence.

  “So you’re not some stoner kid who knocked on our doors accidentally,” Sun said. “You’re a con artist who lied to us.”

  Jerry yanked out the taser probes and yelped. “I did send you plane fare. That cost me almost all the money I had. Look, all I want is your story. On video, of course, for my ClipShare channel. I’m going to get some sick hits.”

  “We would be shot for treason for talking to you, you moron,” Andy said.

  “I’ll pixelate your faces. No one will know it’s you.”

  Andy rubbed his eyes, feeling a headache coming on. “Except for the Secret Service and the President of the United States.”

  Jerry turned sheepish. “Well, I wasn’t expecting that.”

  Sun looked at the agents. “What happens to him?”

  Agent Williams shrugged. “He’s a foreigner. We could detain him without due process under the Homeland Security Act.”

  “Like in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib?” Jerry’s voice went up an octave. “And then what? I’m in jail forever without a trial?”

  “That, or you’re executed,” Agent Johnson said.

  “Or you accidentally die during enhanced interrogation.” Agent Williams shrugged. “It happens.”

  Jerry shook his head and clasped his hands together. “Please let me come with. I’m begging you. Please. I don’t want to be killed or imprisoned or subjected to torture.”

  “Advanced interrogation,” Agent Williams corrected.

  Andy wanted to be angry this was happening, and angry at Jerry, though the boy wasn’t actually responsible. Instead, all he felt was fear, and pity.

  “Can’t you just erase his memory and dump him somewhere?” Andy asked.

  Agent Johnson said, “We don’t have that technology perfected. Yet.”

  “So our choice is to bring him, or he disappears?” Andy said.

  “Your choice,” Agent Williams said. “The President is allowing you to bring whomever you’d like.”

  “How generous of him,” Andy said, his frown deepening.

  Sun squatted down next to Jerry. “If you come with us, Jerry, you can’t put this on your website. No videos. No blogging. No telling anyone, ever. Do you understand that?”

  The kid just nodded.

  “And you’re not really stoned right now?”

  “I was acting. I poked myself in the eyes so they were bloodshot. I just want to know the truth, Mrs. Dennison-Jones. Finding it is all I have.”

  Sun gave her husband a look. Andy frowned.

  “Bring him along,” he said.

  A few minutes later they were hauling their bags and being corralled into the obligatory black helicopter idling on the hotel’s lawn. Several spectators, both hotel staff and guests, stood around gawping at the spectacle.

  The Government obviously doesn’t do clandestine anymore.

  Andy, Sun, and Jerry strapped themselves into their seats. Sun looked determined. Jerry looked excited. Andy felt like throwing up.

  The rotor blades started spinning. A feeling of weightlessness heralded the beginning of the flight and before long the chopper was a hundred feet above the ground, zipping away at eighty miles an hour. Andy watched the ground whiz by beneath them, and his gut told him this was a really, really bad idea.

  “Don’t worry,” Sun said over the roar of the chopper’s twin engines. “We never really were the relaxing type anyway. This is far more us.”

  “You think?”

  Sun leaned up against him and rubbed his thigh. “I’m still going to find some time to get you alone, my sexy man.”

  Andy felt himself brighten at the suggestion, but not enough to chase away all the worry. “Sun, I love you more than anything, but we know what happened last time.”

  “Nuclear explosion,” Jerry said, grinning.

  “This is a private conversation. But, yes, it ended in a nuclear explosion.” Andy looked into his wife’s deep brown eyes. “Do you really see this ending well?”

  “Maybe things will be different this time. Safer. More secure. There’s always the chance the government learned from their mistakes.”

  Jerry laughed. “Yeah. Right. They do that all the time.”

  Sun reached for Andy’s hand, held it tight. “Well, whatever happens, we’re married, we’re together. How bad can it be?”

  Andy stared out of the window as the city of San Diego gave way to lonely countryside. Sagebrush and tumbleweeds dotted the landscape and the Laguna Mountains loomed in the distance.

  “It could be as bad as last time,” Andy said. “That’s how bad it could be.”

  “Nothing can be as bad as last time.”

  Andy pressed his forehead against the window and closed his eyes. “We’ll see.”

  Chapter Three

  The chopper followed along the coastline but headed inland after about two hours. Andy didn’t know this part of the country too well, but he considered that they might be heading over palm valley towards Constitution 1857 National Park in Baja, Mexico.

  Last time it was the desert, this time it’s the wilderness.

  The chopper began its descent and Agent Williams, sitting up front with the pilot, muttered something into the mic attached to his headset. Obviously somebody down below was expecting them.

  Sun’s hand tightened around Andy’s. He squeezed back.

  Andy stared out the window at the approaching treetops and thought about the events of the last few years. It was likely that they would soon be adding more unwanted experiences to their mental résumés. Andy had known this time would eventually come. He and Sun being summoned like this had been inevitable from the moment they’d walked away from Samhain. They were involved in something that was not yet over.

  Perhaps it never would be.

  The helicopter touched down in a clearing between a circle of Jeffrey pines. The steel skids struck rocky ground and the cockpit bounced briefly before settling down and coming to rest.

  Agent Williams twisted in his chair and nodded at Sun and Andy. “Get out and somebody will meet you.”

  “This is so cool,” Jerry said.

  Andy glanced at him. “Trust us, it’s not cool. It’s probably going to end with all of us running for our lives.”

  “That is so cool,” Jerry said.

  Andy shoved Jerry out of the door and then turned around to help his wife make the three foot drop to the rocky landing pad.

  The clearing was baked, the ground hard and parched. Shadows covered one side of the area while the sun beat down ferociously on the other. There was no wildlife nearby; no birds, no squirrels. Andy craned his neck and looked around. Three hundred and sixty degrees of woodland, not a building nor soul in sight.


  One of the agents dropped their bags, then the chopper quickly jumped back up into the air. It tilted left and then headed right, clearing the treetops by mere inches. Within seconds it was out of sight, the distant humming of its propellers the only evidence that it had ever been there.

  “Whoa!” said Jerry, looking up at the sky. “Did they just leave us here?”

  “Just wait,” said Andy. “We’re not alone. Someone is going to pop out of somewhere.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Dennison-Jones, I presume?”

  Andy spun around. Behind them stood an older gentleman in military uniform. From the amount of ribbons on the man’s chest, both his rank and experience were distinguished.

  Andy walked to meet the figure, aware of the drill after having been through a similar situation before. He held out a hand to shake the man’s hand. “It’s Dennison-Jones.”

  “Isn’t that what I said?”

  Andy realized it was. He’d been so used to correcting people that he hadn’t caught it.

  “I suppose you did. I take it you’re the head honcho?”

  “I’m General Austin Kane. Welcome to Project Monstrum, facility 26. Or, as we here call it, the Spiral.”

  Monstrum. Great.

  Kane offered a bony hand, which Andy shook firmly. It felt like clutching a wispy tree branch.

  “And this must be Mrs. Dennison-Jones.”

  “Ms.” Sun said, taking his hand.

  Andy explained, “We’re married, so we combined our last names, but we don’t feel the English honorific should change just because of how many X chromosomes you have.”

  “Whipped!” Jerry said. “If I ever get married—”

  “Don’t bet on it,” Sun said, staring him down.

  Jerry shut up.

  “And this must be the extra baggage I was informed about. Jerry Preston. Tell me, son, what compelled you to steal from—”

  “Nice to meet you, General,” Jerry offered his hand. “I’m happy to help out in any way I can.”

  “Yes, well, if you don’t, you’ll be sent to a black site, and then we’ll go after everyone you care about.”

  “Wha?”

  “Kidding, of course.” The General raised his eyebrows. “Or am I? Now let’s get everyone inside for a quick briefing. I’ll send someone up for your bags.”