Point Hollow Ch. 03

"Ah, Commander." said Mickelson, standing up to shake hands. He was short and had to look way up to make eye contact. He was getting wider in girth, though not 'waddling' fat; indeed, he was fairly spry. His graying hair and beard were a bit unkempt.

"Walk with me, I have to check on some things as we talk." he said. I followed him through the hall and into a lab. "I gave you this interview because your wife asked me to. She is not a woman one says 'no' to. Being her husband, I am sure you know that already."

"I certainly do." I said. "So to not waste your time, I'll just begin asking my questions. Can you tell me about the project that you sent the students to Point Hollow to do?"

"Well, I sent Sherry Kim, Annamarie Reynolds, and Jason Stone. Jeff Slake went along, and Natalie Jenkins ending up going with them. Stone was in radiochemistry, so he had a useful purpose for going. Danny Cantrell went too, but I'm not sure why; he wasn't part of this project. Estes had wanted him to go to the other site, said he wanted to make Cantrell do some real work."

"What was the project, to the extent you can tell me, and with my assurance of confidence..." I asked.

"Yes, I can tell you're married to a University professor." Mickelson joked. "I know you'll keep this in confidence, though it's not a big secret. We're doing soil sample testing well above the Nuclear Power Plant, and down below it. The purpose is to ostensibly to see if there is more radiation below the Plant vs. a control upstream. But in reality, Point Hollow is no place to run a control test. There's some strange radiation there. That's what I'm really studying, though I'm trying to keep that hush-hush."

"If I may ask, why?" I said, genuinely curious. I watched as the Professor checked on several soil samples, then some plants. Then we headed back towards his office as he talked.

"Have you noticed all the students wearing that silly Star Wars stuff today?" he asked.

"Sure." I said. "It's May 4th. Star Wars Day."

"Yes, so if they're doing crap like that," Mickelson said as we sat down in his office, "then imagine how nuts they'd go if they thought aliens were landing at Point Hollow."

"Say again?" I asked.

"Now don't get me wrong; I'm not one of those nutjobs." Mickelson said. "But there are some interesting things going on up there. First, as you may know, no crops are grown on those grounds. Just the old orchards, left to grow wild, and some muscadine vines left over. The rest is nothing but short grass that cattle won't eat."

"Yes sir." I said.

"There is some radioactivity there. Some heavy elements that normally shouldn't be there. But that's relatively small and minor. What's interesting to me is the Sigma radiation. Have you heard of that?"

"Vaguely, sir." I said. "There's been some association with the paranormal, if I recall correctly."

"Not bad." said Mickelson. "Yes, Sigma radiation is not really radiation, but an energy signature. It's associated with the Slender Man, and the Rake, and possibly other paranormal occurrences. With all the goings-on up at Point Hollow for so many years, I wanted to test for it. But quietly, of course, as this is not accepted as genuine scientific study."

"I see." I said. "Purely for my own curiosity, what have you found?"

"There is definitely something. If not Sigma radiation, perhaps some other unique energy that is affecting that area. It may be byproducts or breakdown products of the radioactive substances. So tell me, Commander, what do you think might be causing the radiation at Point Hollow? I understand you were a Chemistry major, and you were in the military."

"Yes sir." I said. "If I recall, there was a Government facility near Dawsonville, Georgia, decades ago, where they did work on nuclear materials when the science was new. There are still glass-like rocks there that are radioactive. I suspect that something like that occurred around Point Hollow... or materials were dumped there, decades ago."

"Could well be, could well be." said Professor Mickelson. I couldn't tell if he was impressed with my answer, or disappointed that I knew as much as I did.

"So let me ask you, sir," I said, "these students went on this trip, didn't come home as planned. What was the original plan to bring them home?"

"You know, I don't know." said Mickelson. "They usually work that out themselves. Estes usually works out the details of that, so you might ask him."

"Yes sir." I said. "So when these students didn't show up on Monday, what did you do?"

"Estes came up to me, along with one of Sherry Kim's friends." said Mickelson. "They were concerned they'd heard no word from the students. It's not unusual for young people these days to take off on whims, so I suggested they waited until these kids were supposed to show up for my Tuesday class. They didn't show, and that's when we decided to call the Police about it."

"I see." I said. "So no concern before Tuesday?"

"Oh no, it wouldn't be the first time a student didn't come in when expected." said the professor. "In fact... the first place I'd look for a missing student would be the Police Station... they tend to get arrested for drunken and disorderly behavior."

"That could well be possible." I said as I extended my card to him. "I appreciate your time, Professor, and if it's not too much to ask, I'd be very interested in hearing about your research in the future."

"I'll certainly let you know of any interesting findings or symposiums I give." said the professor. "And say hello to your lovely wife for me."

"Oh, by the way," I said as I reached the door. "I need to talk to one of the teachers and one of the students here. A Ben Ellman and a Shani Waughton."

"Oh, he's out of Town." said Mickelson. "Attending a conference in Tennessee. He's due back next Monday. I'll have him call you when he gets in. I'm not sure who Shani is, she's not one of my students..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

As I entered Laura's office, a piercing scream split the air, followed by the shout of "Daddy!" It was my daughter Carole, who worked her way out of Cindy's lap and ran at top speed to me and hugged my leg.

"Hey, Carole!" I said, picking her up and giving her a big hug. "How's my girl?"

"Good!" Carole said. "Cin-dee came to see me."

"Aw, that's good of her." I said. I moved to the group, sitting on Laura's sofas, and sat down next to Teddy Parker. Laura was holding Jim. After a few moments, Carole became restless, so I gave her back to Cindy and took Jim in my arms. He smiled when he saw me.

"So," Laura said, "what did you think of the nutty professor?"

"You know," I said, "some of the stuff he talked about was kind of interesting. I get the sense he's bored, though."

"I haven't thought of that, but you're probably right." Laura said. "Like I told you before, he's studied radiation effects on genetics for years. They're not giving out grants for that kind of study, not like they used to. So he starts looking for radiation sources from the paranormal, alien landings and such stuff, and the contributions of aliens to human genetics. Of course there will be no grants for that, unless he can somehow actually find proof of something."

"So how is Sherry Kim?" I asked.

Laura said "I was just telling your partners here... she's not doing well at all. She's going to need some serious therapy. Maybe hypnosis therapy. Dr. Yates is taking over her treatment from me. There's nothing more that I can do."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Back at Headquarters, I told Cindy and Teddy of my conversation with Professor Mickelson, couching it in pretty innocent terms regarding the paranormal stuff. "The bottom line is that I am still not happy with everyone being so nonchalant about these six not showing up on Monday. Oh... I have an email."

I looked at the email. "It's the FBI's results of the DNA tests on Sherry and Annemarie. Both had Jason Stone's semen in their vaginas, and there were DNA workups of at least two other men from their vaginas and Sherry's anus, none of the DNA matching anyone on any Federal or State database. That's curious."

"What about Natalie Jenkins?" asked Cindy.

"Yeah, it's in here, too. Slake and Stone, both men's semen found in her vagina and underwear. Annamarie and Sherry were found naked, and no clothing at the scene, by the way. Natalie had two other men's semen in her vagina, one of them matching Sherry's anal rapist, the other being different and also not found in any database."

"Kind of getting hard to not have one's DNA on file with the Federal Government." said Cindy, with a great deal of acerbity in her voice. "Every military and Federal officer has to give blood for medical exams, so they're on file. Most anyone in any Government job likely is in the databases. Most if not all convicted criminals in the last couple of decades."

"Yep." I said. "So this means one of three things... these men are foreigners, these men are so under the radar that they've never had their DNA matrix saved..."

"And what else? The third thing?" Cindy asked.

"The FBI is lying to us in this report." I said.

Part 18 - Plots

"You have got a lot of nerve, a lot of nerve, coming here." said Dirty Lennie.

"Yeah, right." said SBI Agent Leonard 'Sergeant' Sharples.

"Not only is this the Iron Crowbar's County," said Lennie, "I heard he's out for blood. Your blood."

"We'll see whose blood is shed first." snarled Sharples. "Listen Lennie, do you want a shot at the bastards that killed your cousin?"

"I heard you SBI Agents planted him." said Lennie. "I even heard that you shot him."

"Aw, that's stuff for the media. Political stuff to make Lewis look good." said Sharples. "But the truth is, Lennie, when we got there, Scrawny was already shot dead. The drug gang we were after killed him then ran up the highway to this County. Now... would you like a shot at helping me bring their asses down? Getting some revenge for your cousin?"

"I'm listening." said Dirty Lennie...

To be continued.