Chapter 39
D aylight was slipping away, the sun fading like a dying ember. Nick estimated that full sunset was less than an hour away.
But their plan demanded stealth, and patience.
Skirting the plantation’s perimeter by staying hidden in the surrounding undergrowth, they had neared a large clapboard structure that Raven informed him served as Westbrook’s warehouse.
Household goods, farm equipment, straw, and countless other essential items were kept inside those soot-colored walls behind a set of wide, locked double doors, under the watchful eye of a helper who could have been a stunt double for the Incredible Hulk.
“That guy is huge,” Nick said in a low voice. He knelt beside a tree, foliage camouflaging his head. They had a view of the storehouse from the eastward side, the building about twenty yards away from where they had taken cover.
The guard wore a soiled brown shirt, tattered jeans, and work boots. He sat on the short, wobbly-looking staircase that led to the warehouse doors. He fiddled with a long, broad length of wood that he kept across his lap.
“Huge but dumb,” Raven whispered. “Slow, too. They call him Tank. Tank’s able to scare away anyone who might think of stealing something from inside, ’cause of how he looks. He’s really strong, too. If he got his hands on us, we’re dead.”
“We won’t let that happen,” Nick said. He glanced at his watch. “Does he ever take a break or anything?”
“He’ll go to use the outhouse nearby every few hours. He only does that when someone else comes to stand watch while he’s gone. A different helper takes over at night, too, but we can’t wait that long.”
“We’ve got to draw him away from the doors,” Nick said.
Without a word of warning, Raven took a small rock out of her pocket and flung it. The stone sailed across the grass and landed at Tank’s feet.
Nick glared at Raven. “What the hell are you doing—are you nuts?”
But the girl only grinned at him, and started scrambling through the undergrowth, keeping low to the ground.
Tank was on his feet. He swept his gaze across the woods, the wood levered like a baseball bat over his shoulder.
Cursing, Nick duck-walked after Raven. His knees popped. Bushes scraped across his sweaty face. The kid was so fast that he struggled to keep up with her.
She’s going to get us killed out here , he thought.
But she had spunk in spades. Giggling, she popped up like a mole and flung another stone toward Tank.
The rock bounced off the big man’s shoulder. He stomped toward the trees, dust pluming from his large feet. He seemed unclear on where to look, however, grimacing as he surveyed the area, and he went toward the section that Nick and Raven had left over a minute ago.
Nick wiped perspiration out of his eyes and hustled after Raven.
She moved like black lightning through the woods, circling around the perimeter of the warehouse.
Occasionally she popped up and peppered Tank with a stone, and the distraction always sent him in the wrong direction, keeping him a good distance behind their true location.
When they had reached the other side of the building, Raven broke cover and dashed to the doors. Nick ran after her.
“You’re insane,” he said.
“It worked, didn’t it?”
She had her keys out already. The doors were secured by a heavy padlock slipped through a hasp. She jabbed a key into the padlock’s slot, and twisted.
The lock disengaged with a click. Nick pocketed the lock and helped her to heave the doors open. They whispered open on oiled hinges.
The warehouse beckoned, dense with shadow. Nick squinted and made out aisle after aisle of different items, stacked on pallets that lay on a floor coated in sawdust.
“Hurry in before he comes back this way,” Raven said.
She needn’t have said anything. Nick ran inside so fast he nearly stumbled over his own feet. Together, they pulled the doors shut, blotting out the daylight.
“Do you think he’ll notice the padlock is gone?” Nick asked. “I didn’t want to risk getting locked in here.”
“He’s not very bright,” she said. “I doubt it.”
They backed away from the doors. Gray light filtered into the building from several windows set high above the floor, but mostly shadows dominated the space.
Nick stepped to the nearest row of products. They were bags of flour, with old-fashioned labels of brands he didn’t recognize.
“This stuff is old,” he said. “Do they ever restock it with anything new?”
“They never run out of supplies,” Raven said. “The building restocks itself every night.”
He stared at her. “Restocks itself?”
“If you were to take out that bag of flour right next to you”—she pointed—“when you came back in here tomorrow, it would be there again, like you’d never touched it.”
“You’ve seen this happen?”
She nodded. “Miss Lula would send me in here all the time to get different things for the kitchen. You need matches, right?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t wrap his mind around what she had shared with him, but he decided that it didn’t matter.
The only way he could operate in this fantastical new reality was to roll with the punches as they came.
“Matches. Paper. Candles. Glue. I highly doubt we’ll find flash powder in here so we’ll have to sacrifice a couple of shotgun shells for their gunpowder. ”
“I’ve never seen anyone make homemade firecrackers,” she said.
“When I was working on my doctorate, some of us students did it for fun,” he said. “Our summer project was to create a Fourth of July fireworks show using products we created ourselves.”
“That sounds kinda dangerous.”
“It was. Dangerous and stupid—it’s amazing no one got hurt. But I learned quite a bit.” He had to smile. “I never thought any of it would turn out actually to be useful.”
Raven scurried from one aisle to the next, collecting items like a squirrel gathering nuts, Nick following close behind.
Once she had located matches and a box of white taper candles, Nick lit one of them and used its flickering light to guide their search, holding it aloft like a tomb raider bearing a torch.
They took all the ingredients to a small oak desk at the back of the warehouse. A leather-bound ledger lay on the desktop. Nick cracked open the book and saw barely legible, handwritten entries on the crisp white pages.
“This is where they tracked inventory,” he said. “This place is like a living museum.”
“It’s the same inside the house,” Raven said. “They spend all day cleaning and washing and stuff, but then everything’s back to how it was before the next morning. Like that old Greek myth guy, Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill only to see it roll back down.”
“You’re a reader, huh?” he said, impressed.
“It’s not like we got TV and Wi-Fi here.” She cleared space on the desk and sorted out the items they had collected. “Okay, Mr. Science Wiz, do your thing.”
A sudden booming noise made Nick flinch. Raven’s eyes flashed with alarm. She looked over her shoulder, then spun back to Nick, her face pinched with fear.
“Sounds like Tank isn’t as dumb as we thought,” Nick said.