Richard Hale - Frozen Past

“Oh shit,” Jaxon said unaware he had cursed.

“Yes,” Burt said. “Now watch.”

“Is that Paul Bannon?” Sally asked.

Jaxon nodded his head, but didn’t reply. Even though there was no sound with the recordings, he seemed to think he would miss something if he spoke or made a sound. He realized he was holding his breath and he exhaled trying to relieve some of the tension.

Paul casually walked past the mailbox and seemed to be talking or singing to himself. As he approached the boundary of Burt’s yard, the boy suddenly stopped and cocked his head. As they watched, he turned toward the hedge and seemed to be listening to something. He took a step into the yard and then stopped again as if unsure what to do. He stayed that way for a moment and then looked in both directions. He made a move to continue on his way and then jerked back toward the bushes as if surprised. He waited, and then took some steps toward the hedge again. He was bent over at the waist as if trying to hear something very faint. He kept edging closer to the bushes and when he was about a foot away, he was yanked into the hedge by some unseen force and disappeared from view. The recording stopped.

“I called you right away,” Burt said.

“Damn,” Jaxon murmured, his face tense at what he’d just witnessed.

“Is there more?” Sally asked.

“I don’t know,” Burt said. “I didn’t watch any more. I didn’t want to risk doing something stupid like erasing it by mistake. This is the boy they found in the pool, isn’t it?”

Sally nodded her head. “We’ve been at a standstill on the case for months. Not a clue as to who would do this.”

“Until now,” Jaxon said. “What do you need to do to see if it caught anymore?”

“Just hit play,” Burt said. “But it’s approaching the end of the disc space.” He pointed at a number which read 98. “It’s 98 % full now. That’s why I was going through stuff and deleting things. It will record over the oldest stuff first once it reaches max capacity, but sometimes it messes up. I lost some stuff for you guys last year when the kids vandalized my lights.”

“Lights?” Sally asked.

“Yeah. I run a pretty large animated Christmas Light show and I bought the surveillance system because kids were vandalizing some of the display. I put signs up too, warning them about the cameras, but sometimes they still ignore them. Maybe they’re just stupid.” He looked a little embarrassed but Jaxon thought it sounded pretty cool.

“I’ll trust you,” Jaxon said. “We need to see if there’s more.”

Burt nodded and pressed a key on the computer. He pointed at the time stamp and they saw it had advanced twenty minutes. The man emerged from the hedge in a crouch carrying Paul Bannon over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes. He walked straight to the street and then stopped. He turned toward the camera and seemed to look directly at it. His head was tilted up and he stood motionless for about twenty seconds.

“He’s mocking us,” Sally said. “He knows the cameras are there.”

“I’ll be damned…” Burt said.

They watched as the white masked man turned toward the street and crossed it heading for the pool. He stopped at the fence and pushed Paul Bannon up and over the top, letting him crash to the ground on the other side. The man then started climbing the fence, but before he reached the top the recording ended.

“That’s it,” Burt said.

They waited in the woods for Jason and his friend to return from the pool. John was the lookout and would make some kind of animal noise as a signal. Laughable, Luke knew, but it was their only way of pulling the prank off without Jason and his friend being tipped off. By the time they figured it was some kid making the animal call, it would be too late.

Jimmy, Luke, and Ellie were upstream from the bridge, just behind a tree at a bend in the creek. Sitting in front of Jimmy was an Estes rocket launching system primed and ready for firing. They had taken some of Luke’s dad’s wire fishing line and strung it from the tree they were hiding behind to the base of the foot bridge, right at the midway point. A ‘D’ sized rocket engine was hanging from the line by a piece of soda straw super-glued to the engine’s body. When fired, the rocket engine would shoot toward the bridge, guided by the wire, and impact the large support beam the line was tied to. The rocket engine had a small charge that would ignite at the end of its firing run. This charge was supposed to expel the parachute most rockets carried. It was basically a firecracker that would explode with a loud bang right at the feet of whoever was crossing the bridge at the time.

Sometimes Luke couldn’t believe the stuff Jimmy came up with. He was trying hard not to laugh out loud as he imagined what would happen to the two kids when this loud whooshing noise came straight at them followed by a large bang.

“What are you giggling at?” Ellie whispered, her face betraying the anxiety she felt. She hadn’t wanted any part of this, but she was here in support of her friends.

“Nothing-just thinking about what’s going to happen when that rocket engine hits the bridge.”

“I hope nobody gets hurt,” she said.

“It’s not going to hit them, El,” Luke said. “It’ll just scare the crap out of them and then we’ll jump out and give ‘em hell about making John fall in the creek.”

“I hope that’s all it does,” she said.

“Will you two be quiet. I can’t hear John if he signals,” Jimmy said, adjusting his position behind the tree.

“Sorry,” Luke whispered.

They had tested the system once with a smaller sized rocket engine that didn’t have the explosive charge. They didn’t want the bang attracting attention until they were ready, but they needed to get the timing down. When John signaled, Jimmy would pull the firing pin. And wait. The system had a failsafe of three seconds before the firing button could be pushed, but once pressed, the engine would fire immediately. It had worked flawlessly and they had all hooted and hollered at the brilliance of it. Now they would see if John could get the timing right for riders approaching rapidly on bikes.

The creek had calmed down quite a bit, but it still carried more water than normal. The level had dropped considerably and now stood a good two feet below the bottom of the bridge

Jimmy set the firing unit down for a second to get a piece of gum out of his pocket, just as John made the bird call they all recognized as the signal.

“Crap!” Jimmy cursed under his breath and snatched up the firing mechanism. His gum fell to the ground, forgotten. Luke watched Jimmy pull the pin and wait the three seconds for the ready light to come on. Ellie leaned against him, anxiously holding him around the shoulders. He could feel her breath in his ear and reached up to hold her hand. They waited for the light.

* * *

John cramped up as he knelt in the bushes just up from the bridge. The soreness he felt from the swim in the creek still lingered and his lungs hurt every time he took a deep breath. He had never been that scared in his short life and never wanted to feel that way again, but he didn’t mind making someone else feel it. Especially if that someone was Jason Margot and his friend. What pricks. He would be the first one laughing in their faces after the rocket engine scared the crap out of them.

John heard a noise and peered around the bush. Jason and his friend were slowly riding up the path and he tensed in anticipation. He knew he had to get the timing right or the two boys would either be past the bridge or not yet to it when the rocket engine was fired. He figured he would count to three after they passed his position and that should be about perfect.