New to the story? Start here: Memorial Day Chapter 1: Welcome to Bright Hill

Previous chapters: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 – Maybe Eleven O’clock

He still didn’t know what it was, but it still didn’t sound threatening.  It was, however, in the general direction he needed to go.

He took a moment to confirm his orientation, feeling first one edge of the walk and then the other.  He tried to picture it.  The walk meandered a little to the left and then curved sharply to the right to meet the front porch.  Behind him to his left was the light post, but that would hardly aid him right now.  The problem was the curve, and knowing where he was along the curve.

At least he couldn’t get hopelessly lost out front, he rationalized.  The front yard wasn’t big, and was raised up three or four feet above grade.  If he stayed away from the driveway behind him and didn’t walk off the ledge, he’d stay inside the lawn.  That narrowed his search area.

He decided to orient himself to the front porch.  The walk was not wide; he felt the edge with his left foot and simply followed it, carefully, until he felt the sharp curve to the right.  He did know there was mulch and some shrubs there, which would be roughly in front of him before he turned.  He carefully stepped to his right, just once, and the side of his boot touched the bottom-most step leading up to the porch.

He was about to put his heels against the porch steps and face straight into the front yard when he heard the squeak again.  Much closer, to his left this time.  He couldn’t intuit the exact direction, but it was left and perhaps a little behind him—though without the reference of the porch stairs, “behind” was an imprecise concept.

He paused a few seconds, expecting that nothing would change except for the sharp chirp sound.  The crickets sounded the same; the breeze was an occasional reminder that the trees were thick and heavy with wet leaves.

And, closer to the source now, he decided it was a chirp, not a squeak.  He stopped to consider what bugs might make a sound like that.

Or what birds.  He wondered if birds counted as “intelligent animals,” and if they did, what the implications of that were.

After a minute, he decided to place his heels against the steps, so at least he knew exactly what direction he was facing.  Having done so—which was more difficult to do without tripping than he expected—he stood motionless and waited again.  He didn’t know how long it would be, but he guessed it would be three or four minutes.  He would wait to hear it again, close-up, not focusing on anything but the sound.  It was a mystery nagging at him now, almost a distraction.

He hadn’t stopped moving for this long since he came outside, and it felt odd.  He’d been concentrating so hard on not getting lost, he hadn’t taken the time to assess his overall situation out here.  The relative quiet and the lack of immediate tasks wasn’t as peaceful as it could have been in other circumstances.

Chirp.

Ten, maybe eleven o’clock, he thought.  He was more or less correct the first time.  It had been left of him and a little behind.

He waited a handful of seconds, once again not expecting a change in his surroundings and not perceiving one.  He was facing straight into the yard, the porch behind him, the pavers of the front walk under both his feet.  The lawn continued in front of him about ten meters, then ended abruptly in a stone wall, a ledge.  The wall would be trivial to detect: the top was about a foot wide and he would easily feel the stone under his feet.

He figured he could walk straight until he reached the wall, then turn and follow it.  He could then turn completely around—hopefully—and walk back until he found the wall again on this end of the yard.  Shuffling back and forth, dragging his feet until he literally bumped into the package.

He knew, at least, that the package was something substantial enough to make a sound audible inside the house.  But it could be anything: a crate, a backpack, or something improvised and held together with duct tape.  He supposed he’d find out when he stepped on it or tripped over it.

He stepped carefully off the pavers.  He was going to take his time doing this, because if he was sloppy he could miss a whole section of the lawn or get turned around and have to start over from scratch.

He reached the stone wall, put his right boot on it, and followed it as it traced the curving front lawn.  He made it half a dozen steps before he heard the chirp again.

He took another step because his foot was already in motion, but then he paused.  The sound was on his left again, but he was facing in a different direction now.  It was behind him relative to the porch—near the middle, roughly between the low ground and the front porch.

He had a hunch, just then, that was nothing more than raw intuition and unfiltered optimism.  He turned again, facing the house, careful to remain aware of where the stone wall was.  Something in his head was pestering him and he felt like he was about to either feel extremely clever or extremely silly.

Chirp.

He took three careful steps forward toward the sound, trying hard to stay oriented.  If he kept going he’d reach the walk.  The house was more or less straight ahead.  He wouldn’t get lost.

He stood and waited for what felt like a long time.

Chirp.

Three careful steps forward, and he was feeling both clever and silly then.  He stood as still as possible and waited again.

Chirp.

On his second step, his foot landed on something that felt like cloth-like and loose.  He slowly, carefully dropped into a crouch just in front of whatever it was.

He tentatively reached out a hand, and felt what was unmistakably high-density nylon fabric and then a heavy-duty zipper.  He groped it gingerly, and it felt like a common duffel bag—large, but not an oversized one.  He found the handles on each side; the top two were bound together.

His hand suddenly fell on something cold and metallic and substantial, and he almost flinched from it.  He didn’t know what it was, but it was attached to the top two handles of the duffel bag and felt like it weighed a pound or two.  He hesitantly touched the ground right at his feet, the cloth-like material.  It was damp, thin, light and almost silky.

As he was blindly groping it, the bag chirped again.