We wake up at six am the next day
and get started. The continental breakfast is about what I expected, all the
baked goods are a little stale, but edible. We go out to the rental car and I
decide if we have to go off roading this is not the car to do it in. It is not
exactly a sporty vehicle. I slip in the passenger seat and MJ drives out of the
lot.
"Let me know when you want me
to drive." It's going to be about a two hour drive. The area we are headed
towards is eleven miles south of the Colorado boarder.
"Why didn't y'all book a closer
hotel?" MJ enquires, "could have stayed in Espanola or Carson or
something."
"We don't know if they're
watching the nearby towns or anything. We're still not really sure how
organized this group is." I respond.
"Hmpf," MJ snorts,
"Should be plenty of tourists there too, aren't we tourists? They can't
watch everybody. Besides I doubt somehow this group cares about anyone more than
five miles away."
"In case you hadn't noticed at
breakfast this morning, there are not plenty of tourists right now. I won't be
surprised if they don't have any surveillance in the area, but it's a chance
I'd rather not take." I expect his grumbling to continue for a while, MJ
is not a morning person. Instead he huffs himself into silence and we leave
town on highway 285, continuing on in silence. Well almost, we stop for coffee
at chain with a drive through first, than we continue on in silence.
The scrub brush and pine trees of
the high desert flicks past the window along with ancient sandstone formations.
We pass through one edge of the Carson National Forest and pull off at the
ranger station to buy an entrance pass for the week. Upon inquiry we learn that
most of campsites have open spaces and there's no additional back packing pass
we just have to confirm our route with the ranger station and book the
campsites. This perks up MJ a bit, and makes me wonder if he does not just want
to go camping for fun. He can do that on his own after I leave.
We continue up the highway and slow
down after we spot the turn off for the San Antonio Mountain outlook. A few
miles up the road, a sign advertises the unincorporated township of Nueva Paz
another sign suggests it boasts a gas station. We make a right off the highway
onto a similar road and continue off for a half mile or so before we sight a
rundown looking gas station, a rundown looking dinner, and a couple of trailer
homes. The site is even less impressive than I imagined it, but conspicuous in
that it is likely the only human habitation for twenty miles. The road travels
downhill to the town, but a gently rising slope cuts off our view past the
trailers.
"This can't be right," MJ
frowns, "There's no way 250 people much less vampires live here."
"All the tracking points to
here and they reference it in their own emails, maybe there's more underground,
or some ranches or something nearby were they actually live." I suggest.
MJ scowls some more and stiffens, he
doesn't like the situation and neither do I. Maybe this is a trap, or maybe the
vampires we are looking for are a thousand miles away from here, who knows. We
pull up in front of the gas station. There's one pump for regular and one pump
for diesel, we go to the regular.
"I'll check inside," I
motion towards the station. MJ nods and searches the back of the car for the
gas cap to keep up appearances, he curses when he realizes he pulled up to the
pump the wrong way and gets back in the car to turn around.
The door to the station is propped
open, but the lights are off. "Hello, anybody home." I call in. The
place is small enough I can see no one is. There are two coolers on the back
wall and a couple of stands with chips and candy, a cash register and cigarettes
behind the counter. "Okay" I say to the air. A window next to the
door and one behind the cash register make the place pretty well illuminated
despite the grim on the windows. I search the place a little more and notice
the coolers are still on suggesting electricity and a small trap door is next
to one of them in the back corner, suggesting a basement. The ground is less
dusty, but grimier near the door and it has a well-used look to it.
A small noise catches my attention
and I peer through the window behind the counter in time to see the door on the
nearest trailer home slam shut and a man dressed in blue jeans, boots, and a
baseball cap stomp towards us. He smiles at MJ, who has righted the car, and
waves. I return to the door and wave back.
When he gets close enough he calls
out to greet me in Spanish. I do not know if MJ speaks Spanish and have no wish
to leave him out of the conversation so I respond in English. The man switches
to mildly accented English.
"We're looking to get
gas," I motion to MJ who has begun pumping, "But I think we're lost
too, can you give us some directions."
"Sure," The man says as he
walks past me into the store, flicks on the lights and boots up the cash
register.
"We were going to the San
Antonio Mountain today, did we miss it?" I ask as I pull a map of the park
from my pocket.
"Sure did, it's about two miles
back the way you came on the right." He replies and I wonder if he knows
which way we came or just guesses.
"While we're up here though, we
planned to do a couple of the hikes nearby, can you suggest a few?" I
start pointing to some of the close by points on the map.
"Ah, no I wouldn't suggest that
one or that one either." The man frowns over my ideas, "The ones by
the south side of the park are really the better ones. And it gets real cold up
here in the evenings this time of year; you don't want to get caught in this
area at night."
I nod, before I give the man another
question, MJ saunters in, "How do you keep this place open?" he
blurts before passing the man a credit card.
The man glances at the computerized
cash register, which has not booted up yet, "Ah, the locals mostly,
everybody needs gas. Do you have cash by chance?"
"Nah, we'll wait a
minute," MJ dismisses the question, "What locals? The place looks
abandoned."
A more critically study of the town
tells me it is abandoned, the dinner is clearly not open for business and none
of the trailer homes look lived in. The roof on the one next to the mans might
be fallen in and gives the impression of having a missing wall, the windows and
door let much more light pass through than any of the other mobile homes.
"Eh you know, ranchers and
stuff," the man waves his hand at the world around us and runs the credit
card, but glares at the computer when it does not run.
"Do you get a lot of people
from the park?" MJ asks.
"No. Like I was telling your
friend, all the good hiking is down on the south end. Nobody comes up here
much." The man answered, not realizing he had brought us back to the
question of how the place stayed open.
"Seems like the electric bill
would be more than what you make." I observe.
"Solar panels, on the other
side of the hill." He chimes, finally convincing the register to take the
credit card.
"That answers it, getting a piece
of the alternative energy craze, I see now." MJ responds, pacifying the
man. I check my watch by pressing a button on the side that switches it into
the paranormal energy detection mode. This mode is a simple dial that has
colors from black to red around the outside, right now the needle is pointing
to red indicating the highest level of paranormal activity. There's vampire's
beneath my feet alright, I think.
"We better get moving," I
move to exclude the man from the conversation, "if we want to see the
mountain and then head down here to hike." I tap the map on down near
Carson were the man claimed the better hikes are. "There is a five mile
hike down there that looked good, I thought we would do it tomorrow, but today
might be better."
"Sounds like a plan," MJ
responds as he signs the gas receipt.
"Thanks," I say to the man
as I turn to leave, I notice the man perk up and smile a bit for the first time
since I started asking questions about the area.
"Yeah, thanks for the
info." MJ adds.
"No problem at all, I'm sure
you'll be happier down by the south end, much more to do and see down their
anyway." The man cheeps as we return to our car.
As we are getting in he shuts off
the power to the convenience store and turns to go back inside the mobile home.
I check my watch again and flash it over to MJ who glances at it and nods. He
fires up the engine and we pull away from the gas pump, the man walks back
across to the trailer home.
"Oh I forgot to close the gas
lid," MJ mutters as he checks his mirrors, he climbs back out of the car.
I watch the man return to the mobile home, as MJ returns, I notice shadow
movement beneath the mobile home. It looks to me like a trap door being opened
and a man retreating into the depths, MJ follows my eyes before pulling out of
the gas station.
"This place is interesting,"
he says after a moment.
"Yeah tell me about it," I
answer, I glance down at my watch again, than out the window in time to see the
sun glint off a bit of metal in the desert. Possibly a camera or another trap
door. Shortly after we pass it the dial on my watch begins traveling into the
orange region and downward.
"Looks like it's all
underground," I say when we return to the main highway and turn off to the
left, another glint from the ground, camera most likely.
"And they send one guy up when
they know someone's coming they must have cameras on the gas station at
least." MJ adds.
"Out here to I think."
He nods, "how far out is there
observation radius?"
"No idea, so what now?" I
wonder.
"We look at the mountain and
come up with another plan I suppose." MJ puts on his thinking face and I
begin going over the situation in my own head.
We get to the look out, and walk
around before resting up on the hood of the car to continue our conversation.
"I think it's fair to say they
have camera's on the surrounding area, but probably not too far away." MJ
says.
"Agreed," I respond,
"an early warning system most likely. I'm thinking I'll email Butch
tonight and try and get more information out of him. There's got to be some
digital trace of their activities, the camera's are probably accessible to him
anyway, he's inside their network at some level to have the information he's
already given us."
"Won't you need something to
trade him?"
"I'll tell him the layout I've
seen so far, maybe that will be worth something. I wonder how they did
it?" I add the last enigmatic question without thinking.
"Did what?" MJ asks.
"Built it all. Out here."
I motion out to the desert in front of me, "Whatever they've got
underground took building supplies that had to come from somewhere, and
somewhere none to close at that. Not to mention whatever servers and networking
they have."
MJ shrugs back at me with confusion
on his face, "I seem to remember Butch has something similar going on. He
managed it and he's just one dude that can't even show his face during normal
business hours."
"Yeah, but according to the ITG
files on him it's taken him over 100 years to develop that property, and he's
still building stuff. This group is only supposed to go back a year and a half,
both based on our files and Butch's." I retort, "Who bought all this
stuff and moved it out here so quickly? This has to be a part of a larger
operation."
MJ turns to look at the mountain,
it's not quite noon yet and still cool at this elevation, but strangely warm in
the sun. After a few minutes he continues the conversation, "You think
we've bit off more than we can chew here?"
I look side long at him, "Yep,
but I doubt that will stop us."
He grins back at me, but it fades,
"Where did this lot come from?"
"No idea, I've never met a
group half so large or so organized before and what are they eating too? Just
the genetically enhanced blood? Seems like rich fair to be feeding all of
them." I add.
"I don't want to end up chasing
vampires the rest of my life." MJ sighs.
"Oh it wouldn't be so bad would
it? It would give you purpose anyway." I say lightly.
MJ sticks me with a hard look before
turning away, "It gives you purpose, but it might just make life more
miserable for me."
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