Meadowview Acres (7 page)

Eli watched wide-eyed as his friend emptied his stomach. Hunter had not even said he was sick. It happened so fast! Eli’s head was pounding, but he didn’t feel nauseated. He stepped over to Hunter and relieved him of the pack on his friend’s back. Hunter stumbled sideways and sat heavily down on the wooded floor.

“Whoa, Dude! Where’d that come from?” Eli asked his friend, still startled.

Hunter looked up and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His head was spinning, but he felt a little better. “Man, I don’t know! It was like all of a sudden without warning, you know?”

“You okay now? We can sit down for a minute.” Eli’s head was beginning to pound; he thought they both could use a break.

“Naw, I’m good.” Hunter rose shakily to his feet. “A little hot and kinda woozy but good. Let’s see what that thing is.” He stumbled over to the clump of trees and stooped down to look at the box. It looked like a work box or some kind of tool box, except that it had a bunch of chains with padlocks around it – at least five of them from what Hunter could see. “Whoa! This looks like some kinda secret treasure! This is a job for Shazaam Brothers!” Hunter said with a flourish that he didn’t quite feel.

“I don’t know. Maybe it belongs to the construction crew or something. We should leave it here.” Eli’s head was beginning to affect his mood.

“No way, Eli, this thing is half buried. It doesn’t belong to the guys working on this site. If it did, they’d have it in the rig with them. Don’t cha want to see what’s in there?” Hunter asked. “Who knows how long it’s been buried?” He leaned over and spit out more stomach acid. “Why do people bury things, Eli? To
hide
them because they’re valuable and they don’t want them to be found. But we found it. Shazaam!” He turned his head to spit again.

Despite Eli’s anxious feeling, he was being sucked into everything that Hunter was saying. What if he was right? Eli’s curiosity was getting the better of him. He looked at the box and said, “It is kinda cool. Makes you wonder why it would have to be locked up like that. Maybe it’s money.” Eli quickly forgot his headache and the fear that initially brought them both out there in the first place. This was a job for Shazaam Brothers, and they both knew it.

Hunter motioned for the pack, and Eli handed it over. He pulled the spade out and started to dig around the buried part of the box. They had to switch off digging a couple of times for Hunter to puke some more, or try to puke, but the digging went quickly. Soon the box was loose enough to be pulled from its grave. Eli reached in and tugged on the box until the remaining earth released it. As he pulled the box to his chest he felt a slight rumble in the ground below his feet.

“Do we have anything to cut these chains with?” Hunter asked as they sat looking it over.

“Sure, we got those wire cutters with that tool kit for Christmas two years ago. That’ll work. If not, we can use a crowbar and our vice to pry apart one of the links. Nothing Shazaam can’t handle!” Eli was pumped now. He was glad that they had returned to the woods. Nothing out there was scary. Although neither of them felt great, Eli’s head really hurt, and Hunter couldn’t stop dry heaving.

They decided to start back with the box. As they were leaving, Hunter turned back toward the bulldozer.

“You know,” he said, “maybe we should take a look inside the cab. Just to make sure it’s empty. I mean, it looks like it from here, but we might as well check.”

“Fine by me, Pukey,” Eli said. “Think you can handle climbing up there?” He shifted the heavy box to his left hand and reached for the backpack with his right.

“Yeah, I’m feeling a little better anyway,” Hunter replied.

Hunter handed off the pack and started toward the Cat. Eli followed and stopped a little distance away. He squinted into the setting sun to see if he could make out anything inside the cab. From his vantage point, there were only shadows within the cab of the Caterpillar. It looked empty.

Hunter climbed up two steps of the rig and had just come even with the window of the cab when movement caught his eye. He looked to the left along the edge of the woods and said to Eli, “We’ve got company.”

CHAPTER 10

Hunter, Eli & Bug

B
ug was standing at the edge of the clearing. She was thinking what a
super dumb
idea it had been to follow the boys into the woods. She knew she should have stayed at home after Shasta dropped her off, but she had been curious about the boys going into the woods with a backpack. She had wanted to follow them to see what they were up to, but she also wanted to pop out at just the right time and scare them.
That would have been super funny!

Now she was hot, dirty and had a headache. Her dark hair was stuck to her head with sweat and her stomach was growling. She just wanted to go home, but she didn’t want to go by herself, that was the problem.

Getting there was kind of an adventure. She had heard the boys up ahead most of the way. They couldn’t hear her, though. Her featherweight frame barely disturbed the ground as she walked. Then, almost at once, everything had gone quiet. No animal’s scurrying, no boy’s voices, no leaves crunching underfoot up ahead, nothing. That was creepy. Then the headache had started. She had been on the lookout for those migraine headaches ever since she had read in a national health magazine that females are three times more likely to suffer from them than males. She was on the lookout for a few other maladies as well.
Never can be too careful. Knowledge is power.

When she had made it to the clearing, she didn’t see Hunter or Eli, and she became nervous. She expected them to be there doing whatever it was that brought them out in the first place. It never occurred to her that she wouldn’t be able to find them. Alone and feeling sick, she had sat down on a fallen tree to rub her temples and cool down some.
Wow! It’s super hot out here!
While she sat, she saw the boys emerge from the other side of the clearing by a big bulldozer. Relief flooded over her with the knowledge that she had an escort home. She watched as Hunter jumped up to the side of the dozer and started to climb up to the driver’s door. Then he suddenly turned and looked right at her. He said something to Eli who turned and looked at her, too. They talked back and forth until Eli got up and started walking over to where she sat. He was carrying a big silver box.
Did they have that with them when they started out?
No, she remembered, just the backpack that Hunter was wearing. She was sure she would have noticed it because it was
super shiny
.

She looked back at Hunter who was climbing back up the side of the Caterpillar.

“We’ve got company,” Hunter said to Eli from atop the Caterpillar.

“What? Who?” Eli looked around and saw Bug sitting on the other side of the clearing. “Damn! What’s she doing here?”

“Don’t know,” replied Hunter climbing down from the rig. “But I do know she’s going to ask a lot of questions about that thing.” He nodded toward the box.

“That’s no big deal,” said Eli. “I’ll go talk to her and if she asks, I’ll tell her it’s our tool box. That we came out here to do experiments or something.”

“Right. A tool box covered with chains and locks. She’ll catch on to that lie before it’s all the way out of your mouth. Just tell her to mind her own business.” He started to crawl up the side of the rig again. “I’ll be over as soon as I check inside this thing.” Hunter bent over once again to spit out more stomach acid.

Eli turned, taking the silver box with him, and walked toward Bug. He was feeling grumpy because his headache was worse than ever and he was getting tired of being in the woods. “Great,” he grumbled to himself, “now I get to deal with a precocious twelve year old.” He felt like this was all taking too much time. It was getting late and he still wanted to make it to the game.

Hunter went back to the task at hand and started to climb up to the cab of the Cat once again. He was sure it was empty, but he felt the need to look before they left. His stomach pain was subsiding a little now as he made it to the driver’s side and peered into the dirty window.

His heart stopped and then started racing. His breath caught in his chest as he struggled to suck in air, finally succeeding with a great, gasping gulp.

The cab wasn’t empty. It wasn’t empty at all. Mr. Jackson was in there. At least Hunter thought it was Mr. Jackson. A man who once may have looked like Claymont Jackson was in the cab. He was covered in blood. It was coming from his ears, his nose, even his eyes had drops of blood under them. His head was drooped forward with his chin resting on his chest. The blood had run from his head and face to cover the shirt and pants worn on his slumped body. His hands were resting quite naturally in his lap – a cell phone in one. If it weren’t for all of the blood and the way his face was swollen, he could have been taking a nap.

Hunter noticed a few flies stuck in the blood around Mr. Jackson’s nose and felt sick to his stomach again. He imagined smelling the metallic odor of blood through the window. Suddenly, his body reacted. He turned and jumped the long distance from the cab to the ground and immediately started to dry heave. The contents of his stomach were long since history, but the convulsing waves were incredibly painful. He doubled over and his knees buckled, making him fall.

“AH! OH GOD!” He yelled and rolled onto his side. The image of Mr. Jackson’s bloody body was seared onto the back of his eyelids. He couldn’t make the picture leave his mind. That and the pain in his stomach was more than he could bear as he pulled his knees up to his chest and lay there fighting for breath in between the heaves.

Eli and Bug whirled in the direction of the Cat and saw Hunter jump down and then fall over. He was clutching his stomach and yelling. Eli had an awful feeling that Hunter’s stomach wasn’t the worst of it.

“Stay here,” Eli told Bug sternly and took off running toward Hunter. He had dropped the box at Bug’s feet, but she hadn’t noticed. Her eyes were on Hunter who was lying on his side and moaning.

The convulsions were easing a bit by the time Eli got to his side. “Hunter! What is it? Are you hurt?”

Hunter pushed himself up to his knees and said breathlessly, “Eli, Man. It’s bad. It’s really bad. Mr. Jackson’s in there, Man. Eli, he’s dead.”

It took a few seconds for Eli’s brain to comprehend. He had been feeling anxious ever since they had started back into the woods, and he didn’t really know why. He remembered hearing once that your subconscious picks up on all kinds of things, but your mind protects you from certain knowledge until you’re able to deal with it. Eli had known that something was wrong ever since Brody flew past him on his frantic way home a couple of hours ago. Going there with Hunter, he had felt more secure, but, deep down, he knew something was wrong. Now he knew what that something was.

“Are you sure, Hunter?” Eli said in a trembling voice. “Maybe the paramedics could save him. Are you sure he’s really d-dead?”

“Eli, he’s dead. There’s a ton of blood, Man. We have to call the sheriff.” He turned his head and spat on the ground.

Eli took his phone from his pocket and dialed 9-1-1.