could easily believe that mine was the only heart beating within a thousand miles.
Washed by the faint radiance of far nebulae, Dead Town appears to be merely sleeping, an ordinary suburb dreaming its way toward breakfast. The single-story cottages, bungalows, and duplexes are revealed in no detail, and the bare geometry of walls and roofs presents a deceptive image of solidity, order, and purpose.
Nothing more than the pale light of a full moon, however, is required to expose the ghost-town reality. Indeed, on some streets, a half-moon is sufficient. Rain gutters droop from rusted fasteners. Clapboard walls, once pristine white and maintained with military discipline, are piebald and peeling. Many of the windows are broken, yawning like hungry mouths, and the lunar light licks the jagged edges of the glass teeth.
Because the landscape sprinkler systems no longer function, the only trees surviving are those with taproots that have found some deep store of water that sustains them through California’s long rainless summer and autumn. The shrubbery is withered beyond recovery, reduced to wicker webs and stubble. The grass grows green only during the wet winter, and by June it is as golden and crisp as wheat waiting for the thresher.
The Department of Defense doesn’t have sufficient funds either to raze these buildings or to keep them in good repair against the possibility of future need, and no buyers exist for Wyvern. Of the numerous military bases closed following the collapse of the Soviet Union, some were sold off to civilian interests, transformed into tracts of houses and shopping centers. But here along California’s central coast, vast reaches of open land, some farmed and some not, remain in the event that Los Angeles, like a creeping fungus, should eventually cast spoors this far north or the suburban circuitry of Silicon Valley should encroach on us from the opposite direction. Currently, Wyvern has more value to mice, lizards, and coyotes than to people.
Besides, if a would-be developer had placed an offer for these 134,456 acres, he would most likely have been rebuffed. There is reason to believe that Wyvern was never entirely vacated, that secret facilities, far beneath its increasingly weathered surface, continue to be manned and to carry out clandestine projects worthy of such fictional lunatics as Doctors Moreau and Jekyll. No press release was ever issued expressing compassionate concern for the unemployed mad scientists of Wyvern or announcing a retraining program, and since many of them resided on-base and had little community involvement, no locals wondered where they had gone. Abandonment, here, is but a refinement of the sophisticated camouflage under which this work has long been performed.
I reached an intersection, where I stopped to listen. When the restless moon rolled out of its covers yet again, I turned in a full circle, studying the ranks of houses, the lunar-resistant darkness between them, and the compartmentalized gloom beyond their windows.
Sometimes, prowling Wyvern, I become convinced that I am being watched—not necessarily stalked in a predatory way, but shadowed by someone with a keen interest in my every move. I’ve learned to trust my intuition. This time I felt that I was alone, unobserved.
I returned the Glock to my holster. The pattern of the grip was impressed into my damp palm.
I consulted my wristwatch. Nine minutes past one o’clock.
Moving out of the street to a leafy Indian laurel, I unclipped the phone from my belt and switched it on. I squatted with my back against the tree.
Bobby Halloway, my best friend for more than seventeen years, has several phone numbers. He has given the most private of these to no more than five friends, and he answers that line at any hour. I keyed in the number and pressed
send
.
Bobby picked up on the third ring: “This better be important.”
Although I believed that I was alone in this part of Dead Town, I spoke softly:
Washed by the faint radiance of far nebulae, Dead Town appears to be merely sleeping, an ordinary suburb dreaming its way toward breakfast. The single-story cottages, bungalows, and duplexes are revealed in no detail, and the bare geometry of walls and roofs presents a deceptive image of solidity, order, and purpose.
Nothing more than the pale light of a full moon, however, is required to expose the ghost-town reality. Indeed, on some streets, a half-moon is sufficient. Rain gutters droop from rusted fasteners. Clapboard walls, once pristine white and maintained with military discipline, are piebald and peeling. Many of the windows are broken, yawning like hungry mouths, and the lunar light licks the jagged edges of the glass teeth.
Because the landscape sprinkler systems no longer function, the only trees surviving are those with taproots that have found some deep store of water that sustains them through California’s long rainless summer and autumn. The shrubbery is withered beyond recovery, reduced to wicker webs and stubble. The grass grows green only during the wet winter, and by June it is as golden and crisp as wheat waiting for the thresher.
The Department of Defense doesn’t have sufficient funds either to raze these buildings or to keep them in good repair against the possibility of future need, and no buyers exist for Wyvern. Of the numerous military bases closed following the collapse of the Soviet Union, some were sold off to civilian interests, transformed into tracts of houses and shopping centers. But here along California’s central coast, vast reaches of open land, some farmed and some not, remain in the event that Los Angeles, like a creeping fungus, should eventually cast spoors this far north or the suburban circuitry of Silicon Valley should encroach on us from the opposite direction. Currently, Wyvern has more value to mice, lizards, and coyotes than to people.
Besides, if a would-be developer had placed an offer for these 134,456 acres, he would most likely have been rebuffed. There is reason to believe that Wyvern was never entirely vacated, that secret facilities, far beneath its increasingly weathered surface, continue to be manned and to carry out clandestine projects worthy of such fictional lunatics as Doctors Moreau and Jekyll. No press release was ever issued expressing compassionate concern for the unemployed mad scientists of Wyvern or announcing a retraining program, and since many of them resided on-base and had little community involvement, no locals wondered where they had gone. Abandonment, here, is but a refinement of the sophisticated camouflage under which this work has long been performed.
I reached an intersection, where I stopped to listen. When the restless moon rolled out of its covers yet again, I turned in a full circle, studying the ranks of houses, the lunar-resistant darkness between them, and the compartmentalized gloom beyond their windows.
Sometimes, prowling Wyvern, I become convinced that I am being watched—not necessarily stalked in a predatory way, but shadowed by someone with a keen interest in my every move. I’ve learned to trust my intuition. This time I felt that I was alone, unobserved.
I returned the Glock to my holster. The pattern of the grip was impressed into my damp palm.
I consulted my wristwatch. Nine minutes past one o’clock.
Moving out of the street to a leafy Indian laurel, I unclipped the phone from my belt and switched it on. I squatted with my back against the tree.
Bobby Halloway, my best friend for more than seventeen years, has several phone numbers. He has given the most private of these to no more than five friends, and he answers that line at any hour. I keyed in the number and pressed
send
.
Bobby picked up on the third ring: “This better be important.”
Although I believed that I was alone in this part of Dead Town, I spoke softly:
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