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The sliding door gave way first. Two men entered, keeping low and moving the barrels of their assault rifles from left to right, searching for a target.
From outside a nasal voice said, “Dane Maddock and Uriah Bonebrake, we know you’re in there. Lay down any weapons you may have and vacate the area.”
Right, Maddock thought. Like that’s going to happen. His limited encounters with Trident operatives didn’t lend credibility to the suggestion that he and Bones would be allowed to leave uninjured and without question. He wanted to check his cell phone to see what was up with Bones, but any light from the screen would give his position in the shadowy barn away.
Maddock’s question as to whether he should shoot first and ask questions later was answered a handful of seconds later, when one of the assault rifle-armed men shouted, “I see one!”
Even as Maddock shifted to a better angle behind one of the planter’s tires, the order from outside came.
“He had his chance to surrender. Take him out.”
A three round burst ricocheted off the planter’s steel frame.
Maddock popped up and fired off two shots, the second taking the shooting man in the shoulder. In the barn’s shadowy darkness, limited to slivers of light coming between some of the boards and the half-opened sliding door, Maddock noticed the shot man was stocky and bearded. The hitman grunted and fell back.
Two more men wearing black jackets and knit caps, and holding pistols, entered the barn.
Maddock moved back to get behind the disk plow. It wasn’t the best position, with the barn wall lined with shelves and a few boxes and crates behind him, but he couldn’t stay in one place too long.
“He was over by that trailer with the boxes,” the shot man said, apparently not down.
He was wearing body armor, Maddock thought. He preferred his Trident opposition wearing white shirts and black sport jackets.
“I think he moved,” the shot man continued.
One of the pistol-toting men said, “George, hold your position. Greg and Diego. Fan out and close. Burt, you watch for anyone in that hayloft.”
Someone outside, near the door asked, “Hayloft?”
“Up there,” the man replied, keeping low but pointing up with his pistol.
“Got it, Boss.” The reply had to be Burt’s.
Four men were inside the barn, and that left two outside, counting Burt. Movement of those two just beyond the door told Maddock, if he made it there, and despite Burt not being too bright, he wasn’t home free.
While the men were rearranging their approach, Maddock took advantage of the momentary confusion. Using stealth learned in SEAL training and improved upon over the years, Maddock slid back to his position behind the planter. He reached into one of its bins and pulled out one of the cast-iron keys.
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Bones pressed on the stone door. With less than a few pounds of pressure, it swung wide open into an octagonal room. It had a flat ceiling supported by eight pillars set several feet in from the eight corners. Overall the room was no more than forty feet across.
Lying on the floor before them were the skeletal remains of two warriors. Their weapons and armor identified them as Egyptian. Most likely these men had been selected, or perhaps had even volunteered, to guard this place for all eternity.
A blue glow emanated from somewhere within the room, from behind one of the black marble pillars. The same color he’d seen with Hue’s ghost. Bones’ flashlight caught something reflective on the room’s far side but, before stepping in, he checked the door. Inside the frame were two pairs of holes about three inches in diameter set across from each other. One was near the top and the other near the bottom. Bones examined the door. It was about ten inches thick with corresponding holes set into it. They were aligned so that something could slide into the shafts, locking the heavy door in place.
Warily he stepped back and pried loose a slab of stone near his left foot. It was thick and heavy, and perfect to wedge in the door so that it couldn’t swing closed.
That accomplished, he trained his flashlight’s beam into the room once again.
To the right of the door sat a black marble, waist-high pedestal. Its top was empty, with a roughly six-inch diameter, quarter-inch deep depression carved into it.
Directly across the room was a rectangular crystal the size of a coffin. It rested on a base made from black marble, identical to the pillars. The floor was inlaid with hexagonal stone tiles about an inch across. Its design depicted a night sky filled with stars. Bones recognized the central star formation to be that of the constellation Orion. The walls and ceiling were made from some sort of stone, not a porous type. Within it were swirling gray and black lines.
“Whoa,” Bones said, and breathed in the stale, dry air before stepping into the room. The lack of moisture was at odds with the cavern behind him. “Out of this world.” Forgetting it was dead, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone to record what he saw.
Shrugging at the phone’s failure, Bones continued forward, his eyes switching back and forth between the blue glow emanating from behind the far pillar on his left and the large crystal block directly ahead.
Upon reaching the pillar, Bones stopped. Sitting with its back against the black stone pillar was a desiccated body wearing the brittle remains of boots, black trousers and a gray shirt. Bones knelt and added his Maglite’s beam to the glowing blue light. It didn’t require the metallic blue hourglass resting on the dead man’s lap to recognize him. Hue Mixon, the older of the two brothers. The ghost he’d seen less than ten minutes before. That Brenda and her friend had seen in their youth. That Ruth Harshbinner’s husband had seen, causing him to never visit the Hilltop Barn at night ever again.
Then his eyes turned back to the crystal block. From kneeling level there appeared to be something held within it. He stood and shined his flashlight down into the crystal. Although frosted on the sides, leaving it semi-opaque, looking down from above it was clear, like lead crystal.
Inside was a female body, not decayed like Hue’s, but with eyes closed as if she were simply asleep. She was tall and thin, her arms and legs a bit too long. Metallic blue rings adorned her long fingers and rubies encrusted the buttons lining her white gown. No sign of any of the power crystals he and Maddock sought.
What stood out the most, however, was the woman’s head, the shape of her skull.
Bones bobbed his head and altered the angle of his flashlight, finally moving around to his left, to the head of the crystal coffin. He couldn’t immediately tell if the crystal simply encased her like a perfectly sealed coffin, or if the crystal fully engulfed the body, like an ancient insect entombed in amber. He guessed the latter, or she was resting on a clear crystal surface.
The apparent shape of her head wasn’t due to a distortion caused by the crystal, or the way her dark hair had been gathered and pulled tight along the back of her scalp. Her skull was elongated with a bulging mass the size of a tapering cantaloupe that protruded along the parietal and occipital bones.
“Dude,” Bones said to himself, “Maddock’s got to see this. It’ll bring back memories.”
Sensing something amiss, Bones turned to his right. Standing at arm’s length behind him was Hue’s ghost. In his left hand he held a blue glowing hourglass. Bones looked down to see that the blue metallic device was no longer in the mummified corpse’s lap. The ghost held the hourglass.
“Hue,” Bones said, staring down at the gray apparition with elements of blue light penetrating into his incorporeal form. It seemed to infuse the ghost with ripples of energy.
The ghost reached out and touched Bones’ flashlight. Immediately the light beam’s intensity increased. In doing so, the ghost’s luminosity temporarily faded. Then he reached out and touched Bones’ cell phone that he’d never pocketed. It too came to life, and the ghost faded a little more.
Bones’ cell phone vibrated in his hand while its ringtone—“Rock Bottom” by Kiss—told him he’d received a text from Maddock.
“Figures,” Bones said. Hesitant to look away from Hue, anticipating that, like in so many tales and movies, the ghost would disappear when he did, he glanced down at his cell phone’s screen. Trident outside.
Bones immediately pocketed his phone and turned toward the exit. That text could’ve just been sent, or sent ten or fifteen minutes ago. How the cell signal made it down this passage didn’t matter.
Hue’s ghost interposed himself between Bones and the exit and held out the hourglass for Bones to take. The strain on Hue’s face and the way the blue time device wavered and lowered, showed the ghost was struggling to maintain his grip on the hourglass.
Bones didn’t have time to ask or wonder. “Thanks,” he said and snatched it as if out of midair. “There’s some folks in the barn that need their asses haunted.” The warm blue metal sent what felt like a weak current into his hand, feeling like when he was a kid and touched a nearly depleted nine-volt battery to his tongue. Ignoring the sensation, he raced toward the doorway, picking up speed, hopefully enough that he could clear the ten-foot crevasse.