Pack of Lies, page 9
Worse, it was dead obvious Eli didn’t believe in Sweet Pea. And while any other day of his life Julien would have said that was a good thing, it did put a damper on his own resolution to approach this goose chase like Rocky would have: seriously. The thought of asking Annabelle sincere questions about her encounters, talking to Patrick about his books and really, genuinely trying to believe that there was some kind of humanoid creature walking among them was, well, embarrassing, at the very least. And frankly unbearable in front of someone like Eli. Julien felt a chill up his spine picturing the heights his eyebrow would climb in judgment.
In fact, Eli had a slightly skeptical look on his face already as he watched Annabelle and Patrick get into position for the chair.
“Shall we?” Julien gestured.
Eli followed him, quiet for once, but winced a little when the chair slapped into Annabelle and Patrick, picking them off the ground, and began the long ascent up the mountain.
“You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Julien asked.
Eli shot him a scathing look. “Heights have nothing to do with it. I simply object to being locked into a cage held together with tape and spit, and dangled over death’s maw to passively await the whim of fate.”
“Sounds like you’re afraid of heights,” Julien said as two of the German students were picked up and carried away and they shuffled forward to replace them in position for the lift. Though to be fair, Eli wasn’t entirely wrong. Like the rest of the lodge, the lift looked like it had seen better days. Worse days, too, from the patched-up rips in the cushioned seat.
“I spent my adolescence on rooftops. I’m not—” Eli let out a strange, muffled yelping sound as the chair knocked into the backs of their thighs and scooped them from the ground. Julien grunted as he felt Eli’s hand clamp down desperately tight on his upper thigh. A shocking thrill raced up his leg and Julien felt a swooping sensation in his belly that was immediately eclipsed by alarm when the chair started rocking violently.
“What the hell are you doing?” Julien gritted out, grabbing on to the chair a bit tightly himself. Eli was squirming in place, trying to pull his legs up under him so that both feet were flat on the seat. “Don’t move or we’ll fall.”
Eli froze, one knee half tucked up to his chest, the other jammed into Julien’s hip.
“Hey! Stop fooling around up there!” Cody’s voice echoed out from a couple chairs back.
“Sorry! We’re good!” Julien called back, then lowered his voice. “Are we? Good?”
Eli nodded tightly, staring straight ahead, and then belatedly added, “Yes. Fine.”
“All right,” Julien said. He twisted around for the safety bar and then cursed when the grip on his thigh sharpened painfully.
“You said no moving,” Eli said, voice edged with panic.
“It’s okay,” Julien said gently. “Let me just...” He pulled the safety bar down over their heads so that it could block their bodies from slipping forward off the chair. It was a little awkward with Eli’s knees up, and Julien almost suggested he put his legs back down, but one look at his colorless face nixed that idea.
They sat in silence for a minute. The constant thrum and click of the steel cables interspersed with Annabelle’s cheerful chatter echoing oddly against the mountain and drifting back toward them.
“Sorry,” Eli said, startling Julien. His voice was very quiet, a little unsure. Julien didn’t like it.
“You’re fine,” he said briskly. “I take it you’re not a skier.”
Eli huffed. “I know exactly two things about skiing: rich people do it and you’re never supposed to cross the tips. That’s more than enough to determine it’s not the extracurricular for me.”
Julien couldn’t help smiling. “Fair enough. How long have you lived here?”
“Is this your clunky attempt to distract me from the fatal drop below us?”
“Bruising drop, maybe. We’re not even twenty feet up yet.”
Eli shook his head, but Julien felt him relax slightly. “Today will be my thirteenth day living in Maudit Falls. Are you a superstitious man?”
“Not at all.”
“Let me guess,” Eli said, eyeing him. “A man like you, the world built for his pleasure, must believe we make our own fate. Masters of our own destiny.”
“I hate to know what I’ve said to deserve that judgment,” Julien said mildly.
“Not true? Then what pulls at your compass, Mr. Doran? What philosophies keep you safe and warm at night?”
“I don’t know,” Julien said. “That we’re all just animals fighting nature, I guess.”
Eli gave him a strange, piercing look. “Are we. And who’s winning?”
“Never bet against the house,” Julien said with a shrug, and Eli made that huffing sound again.
“I’ve always thought of your sort as more impractical. More inclined toward magical thinking. Actors, that is,” he added belatedly.
“What, Macbeth and break a leg, you mean? Those aren’t superstitions. Just good sense.” Julien tried for a relaxed smile. “Although maybe I shouldn’t have said break a leg up here. Might have tempted fate.”
“Might have tempted it when you said Macbeth.”
“Only counts in a theater.”
“My mistake. I thought we were in one on account of all the lines you’ve been feeding me.”
“Me?” Julien asked, genuinely taken aback. It seemed the small talk portion of the ride was over. “What lines? When?”
Eli gave him an assessing look. “Why did you defend me? In the sausage room?”
“The sausage room?” Julien repeated, beginning to feel like another mountain echo. “All I said was the truth. Or is that why you’re so offended?”
“Why didn’t you tell the others you saw me going through that drawer?”
“Why didn’t you tell them I was up to my elbows in Annabelle’s desk?” Julien waited a beat. “Is this another one of those things you were talking about before? An impasse?”
Eli’s eyes narrowed, before he made a rude sound and turned away, clearly signaling an end to their conversation. But he didn’t stop gripping Julien’s thigh, and Julien didn’t move his leg a centimeter the rest of the way up the mountain. He didn’t want to rock the lift.
Disembarking at the top was much easier. Julien put the bar back up at the last possible moment and Eli leapt onto the snow with frankly astonishing grace.
“Beautiful.” Patrick applauded, waiting beside Annabelle.
“It’s only a mile-and-a-half hike to the tower,” Cody said. “We’ll be walking an old Forest Service road. It’s pretty flat and we keep it plowed for emergencies, but don’t be stupid. It’s still winter, and slippery.”
Somehow Julien was pulled into the head of the group with the German students, who introduced themselves as Ahmet, Claudia and Jonas. The three of them had just finished some sort of internship thing in D.C. and were delighted to inform him they’d put their heads together and figured out who he was on the lift ride up.
“I thought this country would feel bigger,” Ahmet said seriously. “But you are the third movie star we’ve met so far.”
By the time he’d finished answering their questions about winner-take-all urbanism, what it was like to live in L.A., and barbecue food, they’d made it to the tower.
“Welcome to Blue Tail Lookout,” Annabelle announced, flourishing her hands. It was a slightly hilly outcrop that had been cleared of all but a handful of young trees. “We’re about five thousand feet up, so even without climbing the tower, the view’s pretty impressive.”
Julien looked around for Eli and saw him still meandering up the road. He and Patrick had fallen farther and farther behind as they’d walked and no wonder with those deliberate, delicate steps. He wondered what had led someone so apparently uncomfortable with nature to such a rural, isolated life. It seemed like every other time Julien had peeked over his shoulder as they’d hiked, Patrick was grabbing Eli’s elbow in a steadying grip.
“Terrifying, isn’t it?” Annabelle said.
Julien turned to her, startled, and then beyond to take in the view. “Oh. Yes, it is.”
In truth it just looked like most American mountains on the East Coast. Rolling into the mist, edges softened by dense forests, gray with winter’s trees. In the clearing itself were a couple small brown sheds with heavy-duty-looking padlocks, a propane tank on a concrete slab, and one tall, narrow satellite tower situated a little farther up the hill from the shed and used by the “...National Weather Service to collect data for forecasts” Annabelle explained. “And then, of course, the main attraction, the lookout tower itself.”
A little ways away stood a forty-foot monstrosity. The bottom was an open structure of crisscrossing steel poles built around four flights of stairs that zigzagged up the center and topped by a square cabin made entirely of windows that glinted in the sun.
“The Forest Service built her in 1946, and she’s still the third-tallest tower in western North Carolina,” Annabelle said. “The cabin stays locked year-round. But you can just about see into Tennessee from the top step. Back in ’77, Benny Dobbs went on the run after killing five people; he spent a week barricaded in this very tower.”
“Some say his ghost is in there still. And that he’s just waiting for some poor sap to wander into the cabin to be the hostage he needs to finally make his escape,” Patrick said from behind them. He and Eli had caught up at last. “Same old stories we used to tell as kids, huh?”
Annabelle smiled, but it didn’t quite make it to her eyes. “We wouldn’t want to forget our history, would we?” She clapped her hands. “Now, who wants to go up?”
The students scrambled forward and immediately started racing up the steps.
“It’s icy!” Cody yelled after them, and cursed under his breath. “That thing’s a death trap and should be torn down.”
“And yet Blue Tail Tower will outlast us all,” Patrick said smoothly, looking around. “God, this place doesn’t change. Annabelle, remember when Ian dared us to climb the satellite tower? Now, that was a death trap. You were the only one who made it to the top.”
She smiled, and this time it looked genuine. “Because I was a competitive little shit who’d rather die than lose.”
“Were?” Patrick teased. “Maybe something finally has changed on the mountain.”
“When were you last here?” Julien asked.
“Oh, three or four years, probably,” Patrick said.
“It was more recently than that,” Cody spoke up unexpectedly. “Two summers ago. The week before Ian left.”
There was an awkward pause. “That’s right,” Patrick said eventually. “I can’t believe that was only last year.”
“Have you heard from him recently?” Cody asked. He had a strange, almost mocking expression, but Patrick just laughed.
“I’m the last person Ian would get in touch with.”
“Second to last, I think,” Annabelle said promptly. “Cody, go collect the camera. You know where it is. I’ll take them to the markings.”
Cody hesitated, then nodded. “Sure thing, Ms. D. Be back in a minute.”
Patrick watched him go and murmured, “I see the church of Ian Ackman still has followers among the younger generation.”
Annabelle tsked very softly under her breath and to Julien’s disappointment quickly changed the subject. “I have about thirty-five motion-sensor cameras around the mountain now and try to check them every three days or so. Down the hill a bit is where I set up my very first.”
“Why here?” Eli asked, looking around. “One would think a being intent on secrecy would avoid hubs of human activity.”
“Oh, but it’s not,” Annabelle said. “The tower is closed to the public during the winter and the access road stays gated. Only the weather data folks and a few people who work for the town have the key, and hardly anyone hikes this way these days. Besides,” she added. “I have proof Sweet Pea was here. Come look.”
She led them up the hill toward one of the sheds and around the back. Four lines were carved directly into the wood. They were straight down the center of the wall, about six feet long, tightly clustered and perfectly parallel to one another.
Julien stepped closer and ran his hand over the gouges without touching. It reminded him of the scratches on top of his car roof and he felt a trickle of unease. “Black bear?”
“It’s a similar size,” Patrick said, snapping pictures with his phone. “But no bear could have done this.”
“What do you mean?” Annabelle asked eagerly. “How can you tell?”
“Watch.” Patrick fit his own fingers into the grooves where they began, a short distance above his head, and then traced them all the way down to where they stopped near his ankles, slowly bending over and eventually shuffling into a wide squat as he went. “Now try to imagine a bear doing that same movement with no hesitations or need to readjust.” He stood back up. “Whatever made this had the hips of a bipedal—”
“Like Sweet Pea,” Annabelle interrupted excitedly.
“Without more data I wouldn’t be comfortable making that call. There are many bipedal cryptids reportedly seen around this part of the country. Sweet Pea, yes, but also Sasquatch, Mothman...” Patrick hesitated, an odd expression on his face. “Humans too, of course.”
“Which is exactly what I’ve been saying,” Cody said, rejoining them. “Someone is trying to scare you, Ms. D. Mess with your head.” He glanced at Eli, who stood a little ways away from the rest of them, examining his fingernails like he was barely paying attention.
“Then it’s a good thing it’s not working,” Annabelle said. “Isn’t it?”
Cody’s expression didn’t shift, but he did hold out the camera. It was identical to the one that had been stolen—same sturdy little box, with nylon straps hanging and camouflage print. “Only twenty-eight new pictures.”
That sounded like a hell of a lot to Julien, but Annabelle made a small, disappointed sound as she started flipping eagerly through them on the camera’s back screen. “Dammit. Deer, birds, owl, more deer and—that’s odd. Nothing at all yesterday.” She sighed and this time didn’t offer to pass the camera around to anyone else. “I’m going to set this up again before we head back. The west side of the tower this time, I think. Do you want to come see, Patrick?”
Patrick shook his head. “Actually, I’d love to take a couple samples from these markings, if you don’t mind.”
“I’ll help you put it up, Ms. D,” Cody said quickly. The two walked away over the hill and Patrick pulled a roll of wide, clear tape out of his jacket pocket.
“No casts?” Julien asked, genuinely curious. Eli had also stayed behind and was drifting closer to the shed at last as Patrick laid a long strip of tape down one of the gouges.
“Not yet. This is in case any biological traces are left behind. Hair, skin, nail. If this wasn’t man-made, of course.”
“Forgive me for saying so,” Eli said, “but for a cryptozoologist, you don’t seem very keen on pointing fingers at any cryptids.”
“Because I’m not a cryptozoologist. I’m a biological anthropologist with a healthy sense of agnosticism.” Patrick winked and laid another strip of tape. “Any real scientist will tell you that one of the most important tenets of modern science is acknowledging just how little we actually know. How much we may never know. Not in this lifetime.”
“I don’t think Cody will be pleased to hear that,” Julien said, and felt Eli look at him curiously.
Patrick just laughed. “I don’t think Cody is pleased with much of anything at the moment. But I’m just here to follow the evidence. Sometimes, yes, the easiest explanation for that evidence is human mischief. But other times...well, even the most hardened skeptics admit we’ve only identified a fifth of the species in the world. Who’s to say what’s hiding just out of sight? Maybe some larger animals. Maybe some creatures with intelligence comparable to our own.” Patrick prepared another tape strip, the scritch as he yanked it off the roll suddenly loud.
“Spooky,” Julien said for lack of anything else to say.
“Actually, I find it exciting. I mean how incredible would it be if we weren’t actually alone in this world?”
Julien blinked. “I’ve never thought about it that way.” All those years he’d viewed Rocky’s obsession with monsters as his way of disconnecting from the real world, from his family, from him. Now he wondered if his brother had simply been trying to escape the same loneliness that haunted Julien. It was a depressing thought.
“What about you, Eli?” Patrick asked. Apparently on a first-name basis now. “Do you believe humans are the only intelligent life on the planet?”
“I’ve never considered humans generally intelligent, no.” Eli smiled a secretive sort of smile back and Patrick grinned, white teeth sparkling.
Julien cleared his throat. “How’d you get started in all this?”
“An anatomy background, actually. I’ve always had an interest in evolutionary morphology of vertebrates. The ways we’ve evolved to walk. All the compelling stories a body can tell us about who we are and where we come from. Like Eli’s, for example.”
Oh, for Christ’s sake. Not one missed opportunity. Julien glanced at Eli, who just raised an eyebrow. “How kind of you to notice.”
Patrick chuckled. “I meant most people learn how to walk on the balls of their feet then transition to heel-to-toe around two years old. But some people never make that switch for a variety of reasons. Like you. You’re a toe-walker.” He hesitated somewhat pointedly, then winked. “Not that it’s the only compelling thing about you, of course.”
