Scavenger

1

As the roar of the explosion echoed off the distant mountains, Amanda stayed kneeling. Her chest was racked with sobs. Before her, the blood mist continued to drift in the breeze. The sandy depression was red with body parts. She smelled something pungent and sickening. “Bethany,” she murmured. Shock so overwhelmed her that she was hardly aware of the sharp stones under her knees.

“Go back to the others,” the sonorous voice said through Amanda’s headset. The words were distorted by a persistent painful ringing that the explosion caused in Amanda’s ears.

“Bethany,” Amanda said louder. She mourned not only her lost companion but herself and the others in the group. We’re all going to die, she thought.

No, she told herself. I survived the Paragon Hotel, and by God, I’ll survive this.

But in the Paragon Hotel, you had Frank to help you. She realized that again she disassociated, referring to herself as “you.”

She wanted to scream.

“Your friends are waiting for you,” the voice said. “You don’t want to deprive them of your company.” The voice paused. “As Bethany did.”

Amanda nodded. Responding to the threat, she stood painfully. Frank, she thought. Again, she had the premonition that he was dead. She felt the increasing certainty that if, impossibly, she was going to survive this nightmare, she would need to do it alone. Tears clouded her vision. After pawing her eyes, she took one last look at what remained of Bethany and turned away.

A hundred yards from her, past rocks, sagebrush, and the stunted pine tree, Ray, Derrick, and Viv gaped. Despite the distance, Amanda saw that their faces were drawn and pale. The combination of their green, red, and brown coveralls looked even more unnatural.

Amanda plodded toward them. Her throat felt raw from shouting. Hunger contracted her stomach. But mostly, what she felt was a thick-tongued, dry-lipped thirst.

All the while she approached, her three companions fixed their attention solely on the crimson area beyond Amanda. Only when she finally reached them, did anybody speak.

“Are you okay?” Derrick managed to ask.

The most Amanda could do was nod.

“How did…” Viv sounded stunned. She turned toward Ray. “You’re the military expert. Was it a rocket? How was it possible?”

“No,” Ray said. “Not a rocket. We’d have seen and heard it coming.”

“Some kind of bomb she was standing on?”

“No. The ground didn’t erupt.”

“Then…?”

Ray looked down at his jumpsuit. “Plastic explosive. I think it’s in our clothes.”

A moment lengthened as the implication had its impact.

“Our clothes?” Derrick too looked down.

“Jesus,” Viv said.

“Or our shoes,” Ray added. “Or our headsets.”

“Or maybe it’s in these.” Hand unsteady, Amanda withdrew the GPS receiver from her pocket.

Viv lurched back as if struck. “We’re bombs? He can blow us up whenever he feels like it?”

“Whenever you disobey,” the voice said.

The abrupt sound in Amanda’s ears startled her.

“Whenever you stop playing by the rules,” the voice continued.

“Rules? What damned rules are you talking about?” Ray shouted. “I haven’t heard anything about—”

“Discovering the nature of the rules as you proceed is the essence of every great game.”

“You think this is a fucking game?”

“Ray, it isn’t necessary to use obscenities.”

“A game?” Ray looked around as if fearing for his sanity. “The bastard thinks he’s playing a game.”

“In which one hour has now elapsed. You have thirty-nine hours remaining. Do not waste them.”

“What difference does it make?” Viv spoke so forcefully that the sinews in her neck bulged like ropes. “You’re going to kill us anyhow!”

“I’m aware of only one game in which the winners were killed. It was a ball game played by the ancient Maya. That is not my intention. Winners should be rewarded. What happens to losers is another matter.”

“So how do we win?” Ray demanded.

“That is something you must discover.”

“The map coordinates he gave us.” Amanda wiped away more tears. Her cheeks felt raw. “We need to reach that area.”

Derrick nodded. “We’re not doing any good standing here. We need to move.”

“And discover the rules,” the voice told them.

Ray studied the screen on his GPS receiver. His whisker stubble made his narrow face look haggard. He seemed all too aware that at any moment the receiver could blow him up. “This way. Toward the trees.”

Amanda forced herself to put one foot in front of the other. Her legs aching, her lungs still demanding oxygen, she neared the trees.

“Cottonwoods,” Derrick said. “They need a lot of water.”

Viv looked around. “There must be an underground stream.”

“And all we need is a backhoe to get to it,” Ray said.

The shadows of the trees provided relief from the heat. Then Amanda was in the sun again. The ground rose. Sweating, she climbed.

Ray checked his GPS receiver. “The incline’s steeper than it looks. We’re at six thousand feet now.” He sounded out of breath.

“Go up on a diagonal,” Derrick said.

“Right. Use a switchback pattern,” Viv told them. “You expend more energy hiking straight up a slope than you do if you climb back and forth.”

“Very good,” the voice said. “Use your resources.”

Amanda felt pressure in her knees from trudging up. Slowly, the expanse of the rest of the valley revealed itself.

“Holy…” Amanda straightened in awe.

2

A lake. About a hundred yards long, it glistened below them. Amanda thought of light reflecting off a jewel. As the group stared down, she heard their rapt breathing.

“The voice told us we’d find what we needed,” Derrick said.

“I’ve seen the world from the top of Everest,” Viv murmured. “But what I’m looking at now is the most beautiful…”

“So, what are we waiting for?” Ray started down. “After the ten days I spent getting chased in Iraq, I promised myself I’d never be thirsty again.”

Derrick and Viv followed Ray down the slope, all of them breaking into a run. Amanda peered around, feeling threatened by the vastness surrounding her. The mountains felt close and yet far, tricking her sense of distance. She was reminded of a psychology course she’d taken in college, an experiment in which natives who lived in a jungle were brought into an immense field. The natives were so accustomed to having their vision blocked by trees that the open space overpowered them. Many developed agoraphobia.

Never having been anywhere in which the horizon wasn’t blocked by buildings or trees, Amanda now understood the natives’ fear. But in her case, the fear was caused by the realization that everything in the vastness around her was a possible threat. Unlike the Paragon Hotel, where danger was limited to the rooms in the building, here death had what felt like infinite space in which to hide.

“Aren’t you going to join them?” the voice asked.

Amanda stifled her surprise. “I’m just admiring the view.”

“Really? For a moment, it seemed that the view paralyzed you. Take a look at the screen on your GPS receiver. Do the coordinates I gave you correspond with that lake?”

Amanda was still learning to use the device, but even to her, it was obvious that the red needle indicating their destination was pointed away from the lake and toward a spot on the hill. She glanced to the right and saw a plateau on which lay the ruins of a building. “Is that where we’re supposed to go?”

“To play the game, you must learn the rules.”

“Ray,” Amanda spoke into her microphone. “You passed the coordinates.”

The group kept rushing toward the lake.

“Derrick. Viv. We’re not supposed to go to the lake. There’s a ruined building up here. That’s our destination.”

The group didn’t look back.

“Can’t you hear me?” Amanda asked louder. “The lake isn’t where we’re supposed to go!”

“In fact, they can’t hear you,” the voice said. “I isolated our conversation.”

“Why? I don’t understand. What are you doing?”

When the voice didn’t reply, Amanda felt another premonition. “Stop!” she yelled to the group.

Either her voice didn’t carry, or else they were too fixated on the water to pay attention to anything else.

“No! Stay away from the lake!” Amanda charged down the slope, dodging rocks and sagebrush. “Wait!”

Viv turned, frowning in Amanda’s direction.

“Stop!”

Viv called something to Derrick and Ray, who paused and looked back. Thank God, Amanda thought. The group waited as she ran to them.

“What’s wrong?” Derrick asked.

Amanda heard him through her ear phones now. The two-way radio was operating normally again. “He can isolate our conversations. He told me the coordinates he gave us don’t correspond with this lake.”

Ray glanced at the needle on his GPS receiver. “That’s true. They match something on the slope.”

“A ruined building,” Amanda explained.

“But why didn’t he tell the rest of us?”

“Screwing with our minds,” Derrick said in disgust.

“Fine.” Ray drew his tongue along his dry lips. “We’ll investigate the building. But the water’s closer. I’m not walking away without a drink.”

3

A breeze rippled the lake, creating white caps.

“Is it safe?” Ray wondered.

Amanda gazed along the shore. “I don’t see any skeletons or dead animals.”

“Look how clear the lake is.” Viv pointed. “Fish.”

“If the water was poisoned, it would kill them,” Ray said.

“Not necessarily,” Derrick objected. “Think about the mercury and other toxins in some lakes. Fish somehow live in them, but that doesn’t mean the water’s safe. On Everest, even melted snow has toxins. We treat everything we drink with iodine tablets.”

“Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed, we don’t have any way to purify the water.” Ray took out his lighter, snapping it open and shut as he debated with himself. “When I was in Iraq, running from insurgents, I drank some awfully dirty water. It gave me a fever. But I survived.” He put away his lighter and knelt, his reflection rippling in the water. “My mouth’s so dry, my tongue feels swollen.”

He cupped his hands together and lowered them into the lake.

“No,” Amanda said.

Ray splashed water over his face. “Man, that feels good.” He splashed more water, rubbing his wet hands over his cheeks and the back of his neck. “Makes me want to soak my feet.” He started to unlace a boot.

“Do not remove your boots,” the voice said.

“Ah,” Ray said. “Welcome back. I thought you might have fallen asleep.”

“For the forty hours, I do not sleep.”

“Right. You want to share our pain. The boots. Is that where the explosives are?”

The voice did not reply.

“If not, maybe you won’t care if I put my feet in the water, even though my boots are on.”

“I don’t advise it.”

“Then I’ll just rinse my face again.”

Ray lowered his hands toward the water. A snake’s fangs darted from the surface, streaking toward one of Ray’s fingers. He screamed and lurched back, falling. “Mygodmygod,” he blurted, scurrying from the water.

Amanda felt numbness spread through her. Some of the ripples, she saw now, weren’t caused by the breeze. Snakes. The lake was infested by snakes. All of a sudden, the water churned with them.

Ray’s eyes were wild. He jerked his hands toward his face, staring at them. “Did it bite me? Did it bite me?”

“Snakes. I can’t bear…” Viv bent over, retching.

“You son of a bitch,” Derrick shouted toward the sky. “Those look like water moccasins! They don’t belong in the mountains! You put them here!”

“The obstacle race and the scavenger hunt,” the voice said.

“The scavenger hunt?”

“In winter, when the lake froze, the townspeople used to cut blocks of ice and store them in the mine. In summer, the ice kept the town’s meat from spoiling.”

“Mine? Townspeople? Ice? What are you talking about?” Ray shouted. “I nearly got bit by a snake, for God’s sake, and you’re babbling about ice?”

“Wait a minute,” Amanda insisted. “What town?”

“Avalon. But you’ll learn that soon enough.”

Viv wiped vomit from her lips. “The ruined building Amanda mentioned. You want us to go there.”

“As quickly as possible. You wasted time and skipped a step.”

“In the obstacle race and the scavenger hunt.” Amanda stared toward the rippling snakes in the water.

4

They hiked from the lake. Climbing the slope, passing sagebrush and rocks, they conserved energy and followed the zig-zag pattern they’d used earlier.

“You need to have a name for me,” the voice said. “From now on, refer to me as the Game Master.”

To Amanda, the name had the sound of doom.

They reached a plateau halfway up the rise and faced the ruins of a building. Its walls were stone. The left side had collapsed. The roof was made of wood, the beams of which had fallen. The wood was gray with age.

“All by itself up here. Long. Narrow. Feels like it might have been a church,” Amanda said.

“Definitely was.” Viv pointed to the left, where a large wooden cross lay among a chaos of stones.

The group cautiously approached what seemed to have been the entrance.

“Look. The altar’s still intact,” Derrick marveled.

Peering deeply within the toppled structure, Amanda saw a horizontal slab of rock propped on two vertical ones.

“Where did the slabs come from?” Viv asked. “These walls of rock…”

“The mine,” Ray said. “The voice referred to…” Ray paused and corrected himself. “The Game Master referred to a mine.”

“And a town called Avalon.” Derrick turned toward the valley. “There. Look. Below us. Before the narrow end of the lake.”

Despite the brim of Amanda’s cap, her eyes were pained by the stark sun. Squinting down, she saw collapsed buildings partially obscured by sagebrush. The ruins were arranged in rectangular grids. The long spaces between them were once streets, she guessed.

“Avalon. Sounds familiar,” Derrick said.

“I once woke up in a resort in New Jersey called Avalon,” Ray told him. “I had a terrible hangover and none of the five grand I won playing blackjack in Atlantic City.”

“King Arthur,” Amanda said.

They stared at her.

“The Knights of the Round Table?” Viv sounded baffled. “What’s that Disney movie? The Sword in the Stone? Camelot?”

“After Arthur was killed in his final battle, a group of women took his body to a place called Avalon. According to legend, he remains alive there, in a trance, waiting to return when the world needs him.”

“Coming back from the dead.” Viv entered the church, stepping on piles of rocks.

“Careful.” Derrick went next. “After what happened at the lake, I get the feeling traps are part of the game.”

Amanda studied the rubble, saw nothing that made her suspicious, and followed.

Ahead, a board creaked when Viv cautiously pulled it away. “What if there are snakes?”

“They wouldn’t be water moccasins. They’d be rattlers,” Derrick said. “They’d be making noise to warn us away.”

“I know that in my head. The trouble is, I need to convince myself to believe it.” Viv climbed behind the stone slab that formed the altar. She peered down at her companions. “I bet I’m the first woman who ever stood up here.”

“See anything that might help?” Derrick asked.

“There’s something engraved on the altar.” Viv blew dust from the slab. “It’s hard to read.” She concentrated. “The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ray asked.

The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires. Amanda felt something stir in her memory, a phrase that reminded her of the words on the altar. But before she could remember, Viv studied the screen on her GPS receiver and distracted her.

“According to this, we’re at the coordinates the voice…” Viv corrected herself. “… the Game Master gave us. The receiver’s accurate to within ten feet. So, what are we supposed to notice?”

Derrick looked around. “Remember what he said about geocaching. Objects can be disguised until it’s almost impossible to find them. He mentioned something that looked like a grasshopper but wasn’t.”

“He also mentioned a rock that turned out to have something inside.” Ray’s voice rose with excitement. He surveyed the countless rocks around them, then hesitated, asking Derrick, “No snakes?”

“We’re making so much noise, they’d be rattling.”

“You keep saying that. But how many rattlesnakes did you come across on Mount Everest?” Before Derrick could respond to the sarcasm, Ray gingerly picked up a rock and shook it. “Doesn’t feel hollow.” He shook another. “Not this one, either.”

Amanda stooped, mustered courage, and picked up a rock. No threat was under it. “This one’s real.”

“So are these.” Derrick warily picked up one rock after another. “They’re all real.”

“Keep searching!” Ray told him.

Their thirst overwhelmed their apprehension. All around Amanda, rocks flew, clattering.

“Too many. This could take all day.” Amanda tried to keep despair from her voice. “We don’t have time. If he hid something in a rock, why would he use that as an example when he described the game? Too obvious. He wanted to mislead us.”

“I’m too thirsty to think straight.” Ray looked around desperately. “If it isn’t a hollow rock, what else would seem ordinary and yet hide something?”

“The wooden beams from the roof,” Viv said quickly.

“Yes!” Ray grabbed a fractured section of a beam. “Too heavy.” He grabbed another. “Not hollow.” He grabbed a third one. “The same bullshit as the rocks. We’re not going to… Wait.” He raised a fourth chunk from a fallen beam. “This feels like plastic.”

Amanda watched Ray pull at the two sides of the fake wood. They parted, revealing a plastic bottle of water. Ray howled in victory and twisted the cap from the bottle. He raised the opening to his mouth.

Amanda tried to say, “Stop!” But her dry tongue felt paralyzed. She saw water pouring from the bottle into Ray’s mouth. His throat moved rapidly, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed greedily.

Viv did manage to shout, “No!” But the upturned bottle kept pouring water into Ray’s mouth, some of it trickling from his lips and down his chin. He made gulping noises. Red-faced from holding his breath, he exhaled and lowered the empty bottle. His chest heaved. He seemed transported with satisfaction until he noticed Amanda, Derrick, and Viv watching him in shock.

It took him a moment before he understood their emotions. “Sorry.”

Amanda felt the start of hopelessness.

“I didn’t think. Really, I’m sorry.”

Viv moaned.

“I just wasn’t thinking straight.”

Derrick sank onto a pile of rocks, his head on his knees.

“Hey, there must be others. I’ll help you look for them.” Ray picked up a chunk of wood. He tried another and another. “It doesn’t make sense that he’d hide only one bottle for all of us.”

“Unless he wanted to see how we’d react,” Amanda said.

Ray hurled the empty bottle against the wall. Its plastic thumped hollowly. “Well, what did you expect? I told you I’m no damned hero.”

“Okay, okay.” Viv raised her hands. “Arguing isn’t going to help. It’s done. We can’t change what happened.”

Derrick stood, telling Ray, “But if we find another bottle, stay the hell away from it.”

“Whatever you say, boss.” Ray took out his lighter, snapping it open and shut.

“Quit making that noise!”

“Right, boss.”

Amanda interrupted, trying to break the tension. “Let’s see if we can find more water.”

5

The bottle was in another fake chunk of wood, this one partially covered by rocks near the altar. Amanda’s pulse surged when she found it. Her dry mouth made her want desperately to gulp from it as Ray had. But she merely told the group, “Here.”

She, Derrick, and Viv took turns drinking from it. Like the others, she watched to make sure that no one took a longer swallow than anyone else. Ray frowned in the background.

Amanda was the last to drink. Savoring the moisture on her tongue, she considered the empty bottle. “Where’s the recycling bin?”

No one smiled at the joke.

“On mountains, we always collect our trash and carry it back down,” Derrick said.

“Did anyone ever tell you what a terrific guy you are?” Ray asked.

“I was about to add that worrying about our trash isn’t high on my priorities right now.”

“It’s a piece of equipment we didn’t have before,” Amanda said. “I’ll hang on to it.” She started to lower it toward a pocket in her coveralls, but something caught her attention. “Numbers.”

“Where?” Viv stepped close.

“On the label. At the bottom. Someone wrote three sets of numbers.”

“Let me see.” Derrick took the bottle. “The numbers have ‘LG’ in front of them.”

Ray joined them. “Longitude?”

“They sure seem like longitude numbers. Hours, minutes, and seconds.”

“Where’s that bottle Ray threw?” Amanda made her way over the rocks, approaching the wall. She found the bottle next to the remnants of a bench. “Three sets of numbers. This time, the letters ahead of them are ‘LT.”“

“Latitude,” Ray said. “We’ll find out where we’re supposed to go next.”

“Wait. Something’s wrong.” Amanda tensed.

“Sure. This whole damned game is wrong, but—”

“No. Don’t you feel it.” The rocks Amanda stood on vibrated. The chunks of wood trembled.

Viv stumbled back. “My God, what’s happening?”

“I’m not sure, but I think we’d better—” Alarmed by the increasing vibrations, Derrick blurted, “Get out of here!”

The wall swayed.

“Go! Go!” Viv shouted.

As they scrambled over the rocks, Amanda lost her balance. The wall tilted. With no time to run, she dove to the vibrating rocks, wincing from the impact. Desperate, she pressed herself against the base of the wall and put her arms over her head. With a roar, the wall collapsed, rocks cascading. Impacts made her groan.

The rumble diminished. The vibration lessened. Soon everything was still, except for the pounding of Amanda’s heart. Dust made her choke. Can’t breathe, she thought, struggling to clear her nostrils and get air down her throat. The bulk of the rocks had fallen toward the middle of the church. Only the ones immediately above had landed on her, the higher ones following the trajectory of the wall and gaining distance when they plummeted. Even so, she felt crushed.

She heard shouts and charging footsteps, rocks being shoved aside.

“Are you hurt?” Derrick yelled.

“Sore.”

“I bet.”

“But I managed to protect my head.”

Viv and Derrick helped her up.

“And I kept this.” Wincing, Amanda gave Viv the empty bottle with the coordinates printed on it.

She couldn’t help noticing that Ray stood apart from them. He hadn’t made an effort to help dig her out. We can’t survive if there’s a split in the group, she thought. But then she saw Ray pointing down.

“More water bottles!” he said.

Derrick and Viv spun.

“The impact of the rocks broke open some of these fake timbers.”

As if attracted by a magnet, the group headed in Ray’s direction. The bottles glinted in the sun, their contents beckoning.

“There’s enough to go around,” Ray said. “Hey, Derrick, mind if I pick one up?”

Derrick considered him for a long moment. “Go ahead.”

“Thanks, boss. As long as I have your permission.”

Yeah, a split in the group, Amanda thought. She picked up a bottle, untwisted the cap, and drank, the wonderful liquid clearing the dust in her mouth. She was so thirsty she wanted to guzzle the water as Ray had, to flood it down her throat, but she feared that would make her sick.

Meanwhile, Ray drank from a bottle and continued to look angry.

Viv’s stomach growled. “If we don’t get some food soon…”

“Always complaining,” Ray told her. “In Iraq, I lived on bugs.”

“Go easy on her, man,” Derrick said. “All of us are hungry.”

“Whatever you want.”

“This is more entertaining than I anticipated,” the voice said.

The sound in Amanda’s ears made her cringe.

Derrick scowled at the sky. “Is this part of the game? Hoping we’ll fight each other?”

“Gold was found here in 1885.”

“Gold?”

“Thousands of miners flocked to the valley. A town was born almost overnight. An English real-estate speculator bought the land from a rancher who figured that the valley would be overrun no matter what, so why not take the generous payment he was offered and let someone else deal with the chaos he saw coming? As it turned out, the rancher was shrewd.”

“Gold?” Ray scoffed. “A while ago, you were talking about ice!”

“The Englishman who developed the town had a fondness for King Arthur stories. As you’ve already guessed, he named the place after the spot where Arthur lies in a death-like slumber, waiting for destiny to summon him. But after eight years, the last of the gold was taken from the valley. Most of the miners drifted on. That was in 1893, the year of a financial depression that spread through America and became known as the Panic. The people in town decided that there wasn’t much opportunity anywhere else in the country, so they stayed. The Englishman was forced to sell the valley back to the rancher, whose payroll kept the town in business. But that didn’t help the Englishman. Having counted on the boom to last longer, he was so financially overextended that, facing ruin, he trudged into the first blizzard of the winter. Months later, a crew cutting blocks of ice from the lake discovered his frozen body.”

“You keep telling us we’ve only got forty hours, and now you’re wasting our time,” Ray said. “Make your point.”

“I think that’s what he’s doing,” Amanda said. “He’s giving us clues to the game. Right?” she asked the voice. “You told us we’re in an obstacle race and a scavenger hunt.”

“You’re becoming my favorite player.”

“Swell,” Ray said. “Now she’s got an advantage.”

“I’m right, though, aren’t I?” Amanda told the Game Master. “At each stage, you give us a problem to solve and a threat to evade. Then you reward us with information we need to know to win the game. Is that what you meant by learning how to play the game as we go along?”

“You must play the game to learn the rules.”

“But how do we win?” Ray yelled.

“Why don’t you tell us, Amanda?” the voice asked.

She rubbed one of her bruised arms.

“Amanda, have you figured it out?”

“The words on the altar.”

“Yes?”

“The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”

“Yes?” The Game Master sounded eager.

“Nothing’s here by accident. That’s another clue.”

“But what does it mean?”

“Sepulcher? Sounds like a grave,” Derrick said.

6

Police officers ran up the stairs.

“Do you have any idea how large this building is?” a library administrator asked. “It’ll take hours to search it.”

“I can’t wait that long,” Balenger said.

“Is this woman dangerous? She’s not a terrorist, is she? You don’t suppose she has explosives or weapons.”

“I have no idea if she’s armed.” Balenger thought about everything that had happened. “But, yes, she’s dangerous.”

More police officers ran across the huge lobby and up the stairs.

Ortega hurried toward Balenger. “No sign of her.”

“Maybe she left the building before the police arrived,” Balenger said. “Or else she’s hiding on the third floor. That would explain why no one saw her running down the stairs.”

The reading-room guard was with them again. “Hell, I didn’t see her either.”

“But she was right there at the entrance to the room,” Balenger insisted.

“My back must have been toward her. When you jumped up and ran from the table, you were the only person I noticed. You made quite a commotion. She could easily have slipped away.”

“But why would she show herself and then run?”

“Good question,” Ortega said.

“Maybe she wanted me to follow her. But if that’s the case, why did she hide? Why didn’t she give me a glimpse of her so I could keep chasing her?”

“More good questions.”

“Something bothering you?” Balenger asked.

“I don’t know yet. I’m still waiting for answers to another part of the investigation.”

“Another part?”

“I’ll talk to you about it later.”

Puzzled, Balenger glanced at his watch. Almost four o’clock. Time, he thought. He pulled out his cell phone and pressed the numbers for information.

“Who are you calling?” Ortega wanted to know.

Simultaneously, a computerized voice asked Balenger what city he wanted. He stepped back from the noise of the hurrying police officers.

“Atlanta.”

“What listing?” the voice asked.

7

“Oglethorpe University,” the female receptionist said.

“I need to speak to someone in the history department,” Balenger said into his phone.

His heart beat faster as he waited.

“History department.”

Balenger remembered that the fake professor had mentioned something about a time-capsule society at Oglethorpe University. He prayed that wasn’t a lie. “I don’t know if this is the right place. Does anybody there know anything about time capsules?” It was a measure of how drastically his world had changed that he felt his request made perfect sense.

“I’ll transfer you.”

Balenger’s hand sweated against his phone.

“International Time Capsule Society,” a male voice said. “This is Professor Donovan.”

“I’m trying to get information about an object you might have a record of.” To escape the noise in the library, Balenger stepped outside. Instantly, the din of Fifth Avenue made him press the phone closer to his ear. “Its name reminds me of the Crypt of Civilization.”

“Which is here at Oglethorpe, of course,” the voice responded enthusiastically.

“Just a second. I’m calling from Manhattan, and the traffic noise is awful.” Balenger stepped back into the library’s vestibule. “Have you ever heard of the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires?”

“Certainly.”

“You have?”

“Possibly it’s a legend. But assuming it’s real, it would be on the list of the most-wanted time capsules.”

“Tell me everything about it.”

“That’ll take a while, I’m afraid. The Sepulcher’s a mystery, but there’s plenty of historical context. I’ll check the files. If you call back tomorrow—”

“I don’t have time! I need to find out today!”

“Sir, I’m about to leave the office for an appointment. This’ll need to wait until… Did you say you’re calling from Manhattan? Maybe you can find out today. The person who knows the most about the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires teaches at New York University.”

8

Washington Square South. The shadows in the faculty building contrasted with the sunlight on the grass and arch in the park outside. Feeling the increased rush of time, Balenger got off an elevator at the seventh floor and hurried along a corridor until he reached a door with a name plate: PROF. GRAHAM, HISTORY DEPARTMENT.

Beyond it, he heard gunfire. When he knocked, no one replied. Breathing quickly, he knocked again, and this time, a distracted female voice said, “Come in.”

Opening the door, Balenger heard the gunfire more clearly. He saw a woman in her early sixties, small, with short, white hair and a narrow, wrinkled face. She wore a pale blue blouse, the two top buttons of which were open. She sat at her desk, captivated by her glowing computer screen, fiercely working the mouse and keyboard. The shots came from her computer speakers.

“Professor Graham?”

She didn’t reply.

“I’m Frank Balenger.”

She nodded, but whether it was in response to his name or what was on her screen, he didn’t know. Given her age, she manipulated the mouse and keyboard with amazing speed. The shots were rapid.

“I phoned a half hour ago,” Balenger continued.

She kept pressing buttons.

“What I need to talk to you about is important.”

The shots abruptly ended.

“Shit,” Professor Graham said. She slammed down the mouse and scowled. “Broke it. That’s the second mouse I destroyed this week. Why can’t they make them stronger? I mean, how much strength can these old fingers have?” She showed the fingers to Balenger. They were bony with slack skin and arthritic knuckles. “You said you’re a police officer?”

“Used to be. In New Jersey.”

“Ever play video games?”

Balenger was desperate to get the information he needed, but his experience as a detective warned him to establish rapport and not rush the person he was interviewing. He had to work to seem calm. “They never appealed to me.”

“Because you think they’re mindless?”

Balenger shrugged.

“I had the same bias,” Professor Graham said, “until, several years ago, one of my students made me an enthusiast. Sometimes, students are smarter than their professors. That particular student changed my life. Forget the content of video games, many of which are indeed mindless. Concentrate on the skills required to win. These games develop our reflexes. They teach our brains to work quicker and master parallel thinking. Some people claim multitasking is bad, but if I can learn to do a lot of things simultaneously and do them well, what’s the harm?”

“The two kids who shot those students at Columbine High School in Colorado were addicted to violent video games.”

“So are a lot of other kids. But out of millions of them—”

“Millions?”

“The video-game industry takes in more money than the movie business. Half the people in this country are players. Out of millions of kids who like violent video games, only a few go on shooting sprees. Clearly other factors turn them into killers. You were a police officer in New Jersey? Where?”

“Asbury Park.”

“I ice-skated in competition there when I was a kid.” The white-haired woman seemed to stare at something above Balenger’s head. “A long time ago.” Her gaze refocused on him. “Anyway, since you were in law enforcement, I’m surprised you don’t play video games. The one I was playing just now is called Doom 3. It’s a version of one of the games the Columbine shooters were addicted to. It’s a type called ‘first-person shooter.” Basically, the player sees everything in the game from behind a gun. I’m a space marine on Mars on a base overrun by demons. When a threat jumps out, I blast it. They jump out often, and they’re very fast. I feel trapped in a labyrinth. Ceilings collapse. I never know what horrors wait behind locked doors.“

Balenger couldn’t help thinking of the Paragon Hotel.

Professor Graham considered him. “I’ve heard that police officers play first-person shooter games as a way of maintaining their reflexes when they’re not on the shooting range, and they often play them to prime themselves before they go on a raid.”

Balenger’s impatience must have showed.

“Sorry. My enthusiasm often gets the better of me. On the phone, you said that Professor Donovan suggested I could help you. My specialty’s the American frontier, but I’m as fascinated by time capsules as he is. What do you want to know?”

Balenger was conscious of how fast his heart pounded as he told her what happened during the lecture in the row house on 19^th Street.

“The Manhattan History Club,” she said when he finished. “I never heard of it.”

“Because it doesn’t exist.”

“The coffee was drugged?”

“That’s right. When I regained consciousness, my friend was gone.”

“Your left forearm. What’s the matter? You keep massaging it.”

Balenger peered down. The impulse had become reflexive. “While I was unconscious, someone injected me with a sedative. The place where the needle went in is red and swollen.”

“Sounds like it’s infected. You ought to see a doctor.”

“I don’t have time.” Balenger leaned forward. “Professor Donovan says you know a lot about something called the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”

She looked surprised. “Where on earth did you hear about that?”

“Whoever took my friend left those words as some kind of clue. I think it’s part of a game, an extremely deadly one.” Balenger couldn’t help glancing at the computer.

“The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.” Professor Graham nodded. “It’s fascinated me for years. On January third, 1900, a man named Donald Reich staggered into a town called Cottonwood near the Wind River mountain range in central Wyoming. He was delirious. Not only was the temperature below zero, but snow had been falling for several days. He was taken to the local doctor, who determined that his nose, ears, toes, and fingers had frostbite and would need to be amputated before gangrene spread through his body. In Reich’s few lucid periods, he told an amazing story about traveling on foot from a town called Avalon. The place, located in a valley within the Wind River range, was once a mining town. But after the mine stopped producing, Avalon fell on hard times. It was a hundred miles from Cottonwood, and Reich claimed to have set out on New Year’s Eve, traveling that distance in some of the worst weather in years.”

Balenger listened intently.

“Reich was barely coherent,” Professor Graham continued, “but the doctor was able to learn that he was Avalon’s minister and that the purpose of his desperate journey wasn’t to summon help for the town. He wasn’t seeking medicine to fight an epidemic or trying to get food for a starving community. No, Reich’s motive was to escape.”

Balenger straightened. “Escape from what?”

“Reich kept talking about the new century. Recall the date I gave you. January third, 1900. Three days earlier, the 1800s became the 1900s. The start of the new century terrified him. He kept babbling about being a coward, about how he should have stayed and tried to help, about how he’d damned his soul by surrendering to his fear and running away.”

Balenger felt a nervous ripple in his stomach. “But what on earth so frightened him that he abandoned his congregation and fled a hundred miles in the dead of winter?”

“The Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”

9

Balenger’s fingers tightened on the arms of his chair. Amanda, he thought. I need to find you.

“My book The American West at the End of the Nineteenth Century has a chapter devoted to end-of-century hysteria.” Professor Graham went to a bookshelf, pulled out a volume, and flipped through it until she found the section she wanted. “Take a look at the indented material. It comes from Reich. He had handwritten pages stuffed in his clothing.”

Balenger read what she pointed at.

Balenger lowered the book. “Sounds insane.”

“The doctor found a dozen scrawled pages in Reich’s clothing. What you read comes from the start of the manuscript.”

Balenger indicated the last sentence. “Reich mentions the Sepulcher.”

“But not its full name. That comes later in the manuscript.”

“What’s this about ‘If the world impossibly survives for another hundred years’?”

The professor spread her aging hands. “Apocalyptic fears are often part of end-of-century hysteria.”

“So, in a failing town in a valley in the middle of nowhere, this minister let his imagination get the better of him. But why did he run? Surely Reich didn’t think he could escape the end of the world by fleeing to another location.”

“In my research, I sometimes come across apocalyptic fears associated with specific locations: a flood that will destroy a particular area or a hill where the Second Coming will occur,” Professor Graham said. “But I don’t believe Reich was afraid the world would end. As the manuscript continues, what he really seems afraid of is the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires — and a person. Another minister, in fact. A man named Owen Pentecost.”

“Pentecost?”

“In the Bible, when the Holy Spirit descended on Christ’s apostles, they had visions. The transcendent experience was called Pentecost.”

“Good name for a minister. Too good to be true, I bet. Sounds like he made it up.”

“Reich’s manuscript describes how Reverend Owen Pentecost, who was tall and extremely thin and wore black, who had long hair and a beard that made him look like Abraham Lincoln, walked into Avalon nine months earlier, in April. There was a terrible drought. Winds caused dust storms. Pentecost seemed to materialize from one of the dust clouds. A man looking for a cow that wandered from its pen saw him first, and the first words out of Pentecost’s mouth were ‘The end of the century is coming.” “

“Sounds like he had some theatrical training,” Balenger said.

“Or else he was crazy. When he reached Avalon, the first thing he did was march down the main street and up a hill to the church. Reich wasn’t there. He was taking care of a sick child. The next people to meet Pentecost were a man and woman who ran the general store and supervised the upkeep of the church. They found Pentecost praying in front of the altar. He had a sack with him. It squirmed.”

“Squirmed?”

“We learn why it squirmed in a later section of the manuscript. In the coming weeks and months, Reich spoke to everyone who had contact with Pentecost. He summarizes conversations. When the couple in the church asked Pentecost if they could help him, the newcomer explained that he had come a long way. He could use food and water, but first he needed to know if anyone in town was ill. They told him that a boy was very sick with sharp pains in his lower right abdomen. The boy also had a fever and was vomiting.”

“Sounds like appendicitis,” Balenger said.

“Indeed. At the time, appendicitis was almost a death sentence. Few physicians had the surgical skills to remove the diseased organ. Even if a physician knew how to perform the operation, anesthetic in the form of ether was hard to find on the frontier. An operation without it risked killing the patient because of pain-induced shock. Avalon didn’t have any ether.

“When Pentecost reached the sick boy, he found Reich praying with the boy’s father. Because Avalon’s doctor left a year earlier, Reich also functioned as a sort of male nurse because of medical knowledge he acquired in his years of administering to sick members of his church. But appendicitis was far beyond Reich’s skills. Basically, Reich and the father were on a death watch. Pentecost asked if there was a forest nearby. In the mountains, Reich told him, but how would that help the boy? Was there anything closer? Yes, there was a grove of aspen by the lake. Reich, who was curious about the newcomer, accompanied Pentecost to the aspens, but there, Pentecost told him to wait and entered the trees by himself. A short while later, Pentecost returned with herbs he’d gathered. At the boy’s home, he made a tea from the herbs and encouraged the boy to drink it. The boy fell into a stupor. Pentecost then operated on him.”

“Operated?”

“Not only did he operate,” Professor Graham said, “but the boy survived. Pentecost then asked permission from Reich to conduct a church service and give public thanks to the Lord for saving the boy. During his sermon, he opened the sack and dumped its contents on the floor. You asked what was in it. Snakes. People screamed and charged toward the door, but Pentecost stomped the head of each snake without being bitten and told the congregation that they must be vigilant and stomp out evil just as he had stomped the snakes.”

“The guy definitely had a sense of drama,” Balenger said. “Those herbs he found. It’s awfully convenient that the exact ingredients he needed were in that grove but nobody else knew about them. Any bets that he already had a sedative hidden in his clothes and he added it to the tea when no one was looking?”

“As a former police officer, you see the manipulation from the distance of more than a century, but at the time, in that isolated mountain valley, it would have been hard to resist the spell Pentecost was weaving. I can’t explain the surgery. Maybe he took a risk and happened to succeed, or maybe he had medical training.”

Balenger felt the seconds speeding by. Amanda, he kept thinking. “Tell me about the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires.”

“We’re not certain what it was, but it sounds like a time capsule. Of course, the term wasn’t invented until the New York World’s Fair in 1939, but the concept’s the same. With each day, Pentecost emphasized that a new century was coming. He warned that their souls would soon be tested, that the Apocalypse was on its way. As autumn approached, he urged everyone to select the physical things they most cared about. In December, he ordered them to put these cherished objects into the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires. ”Vanity. All is vanity,“ he told them. ”As the new century begins, material things will no longer matter.“”

“What did the Sepulcher look like?”

“No one knows.”

Balenger couldn’t subdue his frustration. “What?”

“Reich’s manuscript was hurried. He leapt from topic to topic, trying to compress as much information as he could in the limited time he had before midnight arrived — midnight of what was possibly the last day of the world. The passage you read indicates that he planned to put the pages into the Sepulcher. But then his courage snapped, and he fled, cramming the unfinished pages into his clothes.”

“Okay, the Sepulcher wasn’t described in the manuscript,” Balenger said. “But Reich could have told the doctor what it was.”

“Reich never became fully conscious. The infection from his injuries spread through him like a storm. He lapsed into a coma and died the next day.”

“The Sepulcher was supposed to contain all the treasured objects of the town, so it must have been large,” Balenger said. “Didn’t anybody find it later? The people in Cottonwood must have been curious. Surely, when spring came and the snow melted, they’d have gone to Avalon to learn what was happening there.”

“Indeed, they did.”

“Then…?”

“They never found anything that they thought might be the Sepulcher.”

“But the people in Avalon could have shown them where the Sepulcher was. A name like that, it was probably buried in the cemetery.”

“The search party from Cottonwood found a deserted town. The buildings were abandoned. There wasn’t any sign of violence, of the population having been caught by surprise. No half-eaten meals on tables. No objects on the floor that might have been dropped in a sudden panic. On the contrary, everything was neat and tidy. Beds were made. Clothes were hung up. There were gaps in the rooms, where furniture might have been removed or vases or pictures carried away. Even pets were gone. As for the larger animals — pigs, sheep, cows, and horses — those were found dead on the grassland, killed either by the freezing weather or starvation.”

“This doesn’t make any… How many people lived in Avalon?”

“Over two hundred.”

“But that many people can’t just disappear and not leave a trace. They must have gone to another town.”

“There’s no record of that,” Professor Graham said. “As word of the mystery spread, someone from Avalon who’d packed up in the middle of winter and moved to another town would have explained what happened. Out of two hundred people, someone would have spoken up.”

“Then where did they go? All those people, for God’s sake.”

“Some religious zealots in other towns in the area began to believe that the Second Coming had indeed occurred in Avalon and that everyone there had been transported to heaven.”

“But that’s preposterous! Jesus.”

She smiled. “You see how easy it is to revert to religious terms when a seemingly impossible event occurs?”

Balenger stared dismally at the floor. “This hasn’t helped. I don’t know anything more than when I started.” His voice tightened. “I have no idea how to find Amanda.”

10

Behind him, Balenger heard the elevator open. He turned toward the open door, beyond which footsteps grew louder, heavy, a man’s.

Ortega stepped into the doorway. “I was beginning to think I was in the wrong building.” He didn’t look happy.

Balenger introduced him to Professor Graham. “We’ve been talking about the Sepulcher of Worldly Desires, but there’s not much solid information about it. Did you find Karen Bailey?”

“No.”

Another disappointment. Balenger’s shoulders felt heavier. “What about the game case? Did you send a patrol car to the row house?”

“We can talk about it later.”

“Look, I understand your reluctance to discuss this in front of a third person, but Professor Graham has a special interest in the topic. She might be able to help us.”

“Still acting like you’re in charge?” Ortega asked.

The air in the room felt compressed.

“Acting like someone who’s scared,” Balenger said. “Was the game case still in the attic?”

Ortega hesitated, then reached into his suit coat. He removed a transparent plastic bag that contained the case. “Scavenger. The name still doesn’t sound familiar.”

Balenger took the case from him. Beneath the game’s title, he saw an image of an hour glass in which sand drained. The sand at the top was white. As it fell through, it changed to the scarlet of blood.

“May I see?” Professor Graham asked. Fatigue lines etched her face.

Balenger handed it over. She examined the cover and turned the case. “A copyright for this year. But I read all the game blogs on the Internet. I never heard of this one.”

“You read all the game blogs?” Ortega asked in surprise.

“People think video games are for teenagers. But the average age for a player is thirty, and plenty of people my age are fans.” She held up her knobby fingers. “You’d be amazed how it keeps the mind sharp and arthritis at bay.”

“Even so,” Ortega said.

“A professor of history playing video games, many of which are violent?” The white-haired woman forced a smile. “I suppose I could play a universe-exploring game like Myst, which is fairly outmoded now, or a role-playing game like Anarchy Online, in which I control a character in another reality. But to tell you the truth, they’re too slow for me. The ones with weapons and cars — they’re the ones that get my juices flowing, and at this stage of my life, that’s not a small thing to accomplish. Believe me, I know every game that’s available, and this one never got any publicity, which surprises me, given the money that went into the first-class packaging. I know you’re using this plastic bag because you’re worried about marring fingerprints, but if there’s a way to do it safely, I’d like to take the disc out and play the game.”

“I’d like that, too,” Balenger said. “But when we found the case at the house where the fake professor gave the lecture, the disc wasn’t in it.”

“You found this where you heard the lecture?” Professor Graham peered through the plastic bag and read the text on the back of the case. “ ‘Scavenger is the most vivid action game yet created. It has an astonishingly realistic appearance that allows you to identify with characters trapped in a mysterious wilderness, proving that wide-open spaces can be as threatening as any haunted house. The characters engage in a life-and-death obstacle race and scavenger hunt, using high-tech instruments to discover a message to the future to be opened in the present to understand the past.” “

Balenger felt cold. “Part of that was in the invitation Amanda and I received for the lecture. It’s what caught my intention and made me go there.”

“‘The objective is to find a lost hundred-year-old time capsule,”“ Professor Graham continued reading. ”“In the process, both the player and the characters discover that Time is the true scavenger, sucking our lives, even as we and the characters spend an irreplaceable forty hours playing the game.”“

The professor lowered the case and stared at them. Dark circles under her eyes made Balenger suddenly wonder if she was ill. But before he could ask her about that, Ortega had a question of his own. “Is that typical of the descriptions you find on the back of video-game cases?”

“Hardly. They usually talk about ‘blood-rushing action,” ’spectacular graphics,“ and ‘battles with Hell.” They emphasize effects rather than what the content means. This is so brooding it’s almost existential. “Time is the true scavenger, sucking our lives?” You’d think Kierkegaard wrote that on one of his darkest nights.“

“What does the reference to ‘forty hours’ mean?” Ortega asked.

“That’s the length of time most video games take to be played,” Professor Graham answered.

Balenger rubbed his arm. “Is that how long I’ve got to find Amanda?” In anguish, he peered at his watch. “It’s after five. Shortly after midnight yesterday, I woke up in Asbury Park. That was more than forty hours ago. God help me, I’ve lost her.”