Shades by Mel Odom

Author:Mel Odom
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: sf
Published: 2002-07-31T21:00:00+00:00

12

When he reached Roswell, Max stopped at a convenience store a couple blocks down from the Crashdown Cafe. Leaving the car, he crossed to the pay phone mounted on the front of the liquor store. The sun beat down into the town, baking the pavement of the streets and parking areas and heating the air into a convection oven.

He swiped his prepaid phone card through the phones reader and punched in Isabel's cell phone number. Anxiously he peered at the SUV with the news markings and the group of people standing in front of the Crashdown.

Isabel answered on the fourth ring.

"What took you so long to answer the phone?" Max asked.

"Max?" Isabel responded.

"Yeah. I heard about the Crashdown. About the ghost."

"How did you know?" Isabel asked.

"I've seen a few ghosts myself." Max didn't want to go into the whole story over the phone. "Is Liz okay? I heard she was at the hospital." A hurried conversation on the street at a stoplight with a guy he knew from school had netted him that information.

"Liz is fine," Isabel answered. "We need to talk."

"I know," Max agreed. "I don't know for sure what happened at the Crashdown, but these ghosts are real. Maybe they're not ghosts, but they're something."

"I know. I've seen one myself."

"Where?" Max demanded. "Were you at the Crash-down?"

"No. Somewhere else." Isabel paused. "We need to meet somewhere tonight, Max."

"We will. Where are you?"

"The hospital."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine."

But she didn't sound fine, Max knew. He could hear the anxiety and uncertainty in his sister's voice. Those weren't qualities he usually attributed to Isabel Evans.

"Is Michael there?" Max asked.

"No. He had been at the Crashdown, but Maria called a few minutes ago to say that he'd gone off with Valenti."

"Where did Michael and Valenti go?"

"Maria didn't know."

Frustration chafed at Max. He knew he needed to be doing something, but he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He told Isabel that he was on his way, then hung up and climbed back into the Chevelle.

"So this guy was a uranium miner?" Michael asked as Valenti pulled the truck to a stop in front of Leroy Wilkins's house.

Valenti looked up at the three-story home. "Yeah. One of the more successful desert rats who ever lived that kind of life. His dad was a miner before him. Taught Leroy everything he knew about mining. The elder Wilkins did a lot of mining for uranium used by the United States government during their nuclear weapons testing back in the forties and fifties. There's an underground uranium mining museum over in Grants, New Mexico, that has some exhibits Leroy's father was responsible for."

Michael studied the house. Trees had grown up around the house, closing in on the structure. Peeling paint looked like diseased areas. Shingles lay in the overgrown weeds in the yard and left bare spots on the roof. If the roof weren't leaking now, it soon would be. The railing around the porch had come loose in some areas and was rotting in others.

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