Chapter 22: An Important Discovery

A figure emerged from the side of the steel building.  It looked warily around, then slunk behind the smaller building in the middle of the large ones.  A moment later, another followed—then another.  Soon, Frank, Ashley, and Auburn had circled around to the front.

“No holes in this one,” said Frank.  “Guess we’ll have to break in.”

“I don’t think that’s necessary,” said Auburn, pointing to the sliding door.  “There’s no lock.”

Frank followed her gesture.  “Whoa, you’re right,” he said.  “That’s surprising.”

“Not really,” said Auburn.  “If a building’s abandoned, its owners won’t be too concerned with security.  I found that out this summer.”

“Yes, but we were hoping that my sister would be in there,” Ashley said. “If it’s unlocked—”

“Well, it is the small building,” Frank said.  “Tell you what.  You two hide behind it—I’m going in alone.  If I’m not out in five minutes, go for help!”

The girls nodded.  “Be careful!”

Frank waited until they were out of sight, then eased the door open.  Wandering inside, he stretched out his hand, feeling for the—

CRASH!

—wall, but his hand brushed against something else—something that fell over!  Turning on his light, Frank saw the broken pieces of a gas pump—one of those old-fashioned ones, like they had in the 1930s.

Odd, he thought to himself.  Those aren’t supposed to break like that!

He picked up one of the pieces and nudged it about in his hand—until, suddenly, he realized it was porcelain.  So were all the others.  One side of all the shards was painted the way a pump would be—the rest was blank.  None of the pieces corresponded to inner workings whatever.

An artistic creation, Frank realized.  Too bad I ruined it!

Even as he picked up the shard, he was keeping an eye out for danger, but no one stirred inside.  Shining the light around, Frank discovered that the pump he’d knocked over wasn’t the only one.  There were tons of others—Conoco, Sinclair, Standard—all the classic brands of the time period.  Looking them over, Frank had to nod appreciatively.  They were all quite good—

“What’s going on in there?”  Auburn and Ashley stuck their heads in.

“Get in here, quick!” Frank motioned them in.  “Nothing much—I just knocked over a statue, but if anyone’s in that other building, they’ll see you!  We’ll wait here for another five minutes!”

“This reminds me of one of those cowboy movies, where they’re searching the town for the crook,” Ashley whispered.  “Only, I should think the shooting would have started about now—”

“It might come at any time,” Auburn hissed.  “Let’s be careful!  Any sign of Brittany?”

Frank shook his head.

Though the waiting was tense, it produced the same result as before—only, this time, no cat made an appearance, and Ashley didn’t scream.  Once the time was up, Frank flicked his light off and stalked over to the door.

“I’m going to search the back of that truck,” he said.  “You two stay here—unless anyone else comes in.”

“We’ll see them from the door—” Ashley started.

“Not if there’s a secret entrance,” Frank said.  “I doubt there is, but you can never be too careful.  Watch out!”

He glanced across the lot, then ran over to the back of the truck.  Gripping the handle, he pulled it open—

Then jumped hastily out of the way!

Crash—bangity-bang—rattle, rattle!

A huge pile of rusty scrap metal cascaded out of the back of the hauler.  Someone had stuffed the truck full of anything they could find—rusty car parts, pieces of old appliances, old pipes.  It was shoved in there tightly enough to remain put—as long as someone didn’t open the back of the truck by mistake.  Frank got out of the way just in time!

The girls popped their heads out of the building, then stifled laughs.  “Guess that truck hasn’t been used in a while!” Ashley said.

Frank ducked around to the other side, and the girls didn’t see him for five minutes, at which point he came running back across the lot.  “That’s not one of the vans they’ve used,” he said.  “I didn’t notice this when we first drove by, but one of the tires on the right side is flat.  The other has plants growing on it.”

Ashley laughed.  “Greenhouse tire—now there’s a concept.  I’ll bet Stephanie would love to see that—she always thinks it’s funny when plants are growing in…” her face fell, as she remembered her sister was still missing.  “It’s looking like this might be the wrong guess, right?”

“Not necessarily,” said Frank.  “Remember, there are tire tracks all over this lot.  Just because that trailer hasn’t been used in years doesn’t mean they don’t park others here.  Perhaps they’ve got their operations confined to one building—that one,” he said, gesturing at the white structure.  “And if anybody was here, I’m sure they would’ve come out by now, with all the noise we’ve made.”

“I don’t know,” said Auburn.  “Those other buildings didn’t have anything incriminating in them.  Maybe they’re waiting to see if we search that one.”

“Could be,” said Frank.  “Only, they don’t know about Zach.  If they’re watching us, I think they’d have tried to apprehend us by now.  They’ve had time to see there’s only three of us.”

“Maybe,” said Auburn.  “Now for the last building.  Do we all go?”

“Yes, we’ll all go,” said Frank.  “Sliding door at the back.  Come on.”

This door also had no lock on it, but the metal was rusty.  Frank and Auburn had a tough time budging it, but they had it open after a lot of squeaks in ten seconds.  Stepping in, the group glanced around.

“Seems even darker in here than it did in the other two,” Frank commented.  “A lot more stuff in here, though.  Maybe this is where we’ll find—”

“Hold it right there, kids!”

“Huh?!”  Frank, Auburn, and Ashley gasped simultaneously as an unknown voice spoke to them out of the darkness.  Glancing to their right, they saw the black silhouette of a man, facing them.  That alone would’ve been bad enough, but the shotgun barrel he had trained on them made the picture even worse.

One blast could kill the three of them.