Bull's Eye: Confessions of a Fake Psychic Detective #3

Chapter 11

As promised, the helicopter delivers Zandra and Vince up and away from the police station, its spontaneity and blades keeping any crowds from gathering in the parking lot. A few gawkers, some in uniform, stare up at the machine as Zandra looks down. Even with the view, it's hard to see whether any of them carry a .380 stuffed into their waistbands.

Then comes downtown Stevens Point, slowly collapsing into a marble in Zandra's point of view. Even from above, it's easy to spot the hole in the marble that is Sneak Peek.

"Behold, all I see before me is fraud," Zandra says, wondering if that's a quote from one of her books or something from her imagination. The words don't make it an inch from her lips before the roar of the rotor cuts them into pieces. "The world, child, is make-believe, yet all truth is self-revealing. Apocalypse is inevitable."

The ride lasts longer than Zandra anticipates. She looks to Vince for any hint of where they're going, but his attention is quarantined behind sunglasses and earmuffs. The pilot, a woman with incredible posture that suggests previous military service, never bothered with an introduction. The only hint Zandra can pull from is the passing of various landmarks beneath, indicating they're flying north.

What if I never make it back to Stevens Point?

They pass the industrial clusters of Wausau, then veer slightly east. The hills and valleys, generously referred to as "mountains" by the locals, flatten from this height, looking to Zandra as smooth as the paper the mills churn out.

How much does it cost to fly a helicopter this far?

She feels the helicopter descend as Rhinelander comes into view. It's one of the last bastions of civilization before the big woods reclaim their authority, meaning it has more than two bars. It's also home to the "hodag," a mythical creature cut from the same cloth as Paul Bunyan. The hodag's appearance, judging by the scores of artwork and statues, resembles a short, stout dragon or dinosaur. A living specimen went on display at the county fair in the dusk of the 19th Century, although the nuances between "living" and "electric-powered" remained a muddy thing in the minds of the dazzled.

The helicopter settles down onto a patch of gravel well beyond Rhinelander's posted city limits. The rotors slow to a crawl, and Zandra is urged to go outside in the late afternoon sun. There, she gets a better look at the pilot.

Looks like she should be breaking in arrivals at Parris Island.

"Welcome," Vince says after the whine of the chopper goes mute.

Zandra looks around. The gravel patch extends about 20 feet beyond the helicopter and is surrounded by old growth pines. Other than wooden debris, there's nothing else remarkable about the dirt.

"Welcome to what?" Zandra says. She points at the pilot. "And who are you?"

"Jo," the pilot says, standing rigid as the pines and barely moving her lips. "I fly."

"I could see that. What else do you do, Jo?" Zandra says.

"Land."

Quite the résumé.

"OK, got it," Zandra says. Then to Vince, "Where the hell are we?"

Vince stretches out each muscle group above the waist while Jo unloads packs from the chopper. They're olive drab, military surplus packs, stuffed to the brim.

"Jo over there, she blew shit up overseas for Uncle Sam from 300 feet up. We met a couple years back. The rest is history," Vince says.

So they're a couple.

"Great, but that doesn't explain where we are," Zandra says, watching Jo stack the packs.

"We're where the gangsters used to come up from Chicago during Prohibition. Some of them had names you might even recognize. They'd find a long driveway leading into the woods, cut the phone lines and pay the owners to keep quiet while they slept on the couch," Vince says. "Some of these homeowners started catering to the gangsters specifically, seeing as how it was the Depression and all, so they built underground bunkers. They were like hotels for rumrunners."

I've heard the stories before.

"I take it we're near one of these hotels?" Zandra says. She shuffles to a nearby tree and braces herself against its rough trunk. Ankle hurts from sitting too long in the helicopter. It hurts when she stands too long, too.

"Nearby? We're on top of it," Vince says and points to rock at the edge of the gravel.

Zandra didn't notice it before, but the rock is clearly spray-painted gray. It looks like a prop from a cheesy horror movie. Looking more closely at her surroundings, she sees pipes sticking up from the ground running flush with tree trunks. They're painted brown.

"It needed a tune up when we found it. It'd degraded back into being a hole in the ground. Bought the 500-acre parcel it sits in so no one else would find it," Vince says as he helps Jo with the last bag from the helicopter.

There's that "we" word again.

Jo pulls something resembling a TV remote control from her pocket and aims it at the phony rock. The rock slides to the side, revealing a large opening leading into the earth. Zandra hobbles over for a look. Walls of concrete frame a steel ladder that terminates at a metal grate. Where the path leads beyond that, she can't tell.

This all feels too familiar. I don't have good luck with this.

"You don't seriously expect me to go down there, do you?" Zandra says. "I barely know you people."

"You weren't saying that when you were taking our money," Vince says.

"Perhaps I'm an opportunist," Zandra says.

"Fitting, seeing as how you also claim to be a psychic."

What's the alternative? Run into the woods? Go to back to jail? I'm guilty and I don't have a lawyer. There's no way around those things. Might be better to bite it in a bunker.

Jo taps her foot on the gravel.

"Alright, but I'm not going in first," Zandra says and takes a step back from the opening.

"Bags go first," Jo says and starts dropping them down onto the grate. "Then you go. Hit the light switch."

Zandra doesn't argue. It takes her a bit on account of her ankle, but the bags make for nice padding when her feet touch down at the bottom of the ladder. The air is dark and clammy, and it makes her cough until she loses her balance. She catches herself against the concrete, and her arm accidentally flips a light switch.

The interior of the bunker slowly lights up in a halogen glow that sterilizes everything it touches. Her eyes adjust, and she sees before her a single, large room about the size of a two-stall garage. It's packed with everything a survivalist could want, from jugs of water and canned foods to a desktop computer and firearms. A fan or ventilator kicks on from somewhere near a mountain of ammunition.

I've also heard these stories. "Preppers" is the term, I believe.

But it's not the gear that catches Zandra's attention. As the lights come to their full brightness, she sees the outline of someone familiar resting on a military surplus cot.

No. Not resting. Bound.

Zandra shuffles inside, sliding her hand along the cool, concrete wall for balance. She stops when she reaches the cot. There's no doubt about the identity of the person wrapped beneath several lengths of rope.

That's Zeena.