Chapter 60

60

We were all back upstairs monitoring things from the window and just sitting there waiting to see what would happen next when a muted clank brought Mathias to the window.

Mario had found a telescope from among the antiques and Mathias bent to where it was pointed outside.

He quickly waved at me from where I sat catnapping on a toddler's race car bed.

"Mike, look."

"What?" I said, coming over.

"They're bringing something in."

I went to the window and peered down into the scope. By the post office command center, the cops were shuffling and circling around as a large truck came into the parking lot.

It was a flatbed truck and there was some kind of cherry picker, a hydraulic motorized construction platform on the back of it.

But it wasn't a normal cherry picker, I saw as the skids were dropped and it was backed down.

It was a cherry picker modified with a giant ballistic shield on the front of it for a SWAT team to stand behind.

It took me a second to recover when I saw that.

"What is it? I don't like that look on your face," Mathias said.

"This is not good," I said. "I haven't seen this before. It must be brand-new."

"What are they going to do with it?" said Scotty who had come over and was looking out. "They can't get past the door."

"They won't need to," I said. "They can get in directly to the second floor now. And straight to the roof, too."

"They can get in now," Daisy said, suddenly standing. "We're sitting ducks!"

"The tunnel," Scotty suddenly said.

"Are you feeling okay?" said Daisy.

"The tunnel," Scotty said again as he stood up from the rocking chair. "There's a tunnel in this building in the basement. I grew up a block away and I remember it from when I was a kid."

"A tunnel," I said.

"Yes. It leads to the town museum across the street. It goes under the street directly into the basement of the museum there."

He went to the window and pointed to the right, across the parking lot to an old stone building.

"Before it became the town museum, that was the office building for the factory. This whole town was just for the workers of the Beckford Tool Factory and the owner, Beckford, was apparently a very generous man. He was like the mayor and boss and Santa Claus all rolled into one. In gratitude, the workers all pitched together and built the tunnel for old man Beckford as a surprise one Christmas so that he could visit the factory from his office when it was raining."

"Are you sure it's still there?" I said.

"I'm positive. This building used to be abandoned and in high school me and my buddies would party in it. We'd walk through the tunnel on Halloween back in the '80s. It was the thing to do, like a haunted house."

"Now he tells us," Mario said, throwing his hands up. "We're sitting here biting our nails when there's a freaking escape hatch."

"The '80s is going back a while," I said. "Isn't it possible that it's gone now?"

"We would've heard about something like that. Not much changes around here. Just look at this place. They've hardly touched it."

"Okay," I said. "I'm convinced. My pickup is parked near the museum building so when we go through the tunnel, I grab my truck and we all pile in and make a run for it.

"I thought we could hold them off here because it's like a castle but that cherry picker is a game changer. Changes the entire terrain, so we need new tactics."

I went to the window as I heard the rumble of the machine again.

"But we have to time it right."

"How so?" said Mathias.

"We have to have them come at us first. They have to think we're still in here hiding. Have to keep them busy here while we skedaddle or it won't work."