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In the distance, the dog barked again, ferociously this tiot a fix on the sound and ran toward it, fro abandoned warehouses that looods of lost religions, then into a broad paved area thatarea for trucks delivering freight

I had run a considerable distance, leaving the paverass lush from the recent rains, when the h the disarranged covers, I saw ranks of low structures less than half a mile away These were the small houses once occupied by the married military personnel and their fa had stopped, I kept , certain that Orson--and perhaps Jirass ended at a cracked sidewalk I leaped across a gutter choked with dead leaves, scraps of paper, and other debris, into a street lined on both sides with enor, and the moonlit pavement under them was dappled with leaf shadows, but an equal nunarled black branches

The barking rose once h to be precisely located This time it was punctuated by yawps, yelps--and then a squeal of pain

My heart knocked againstthe two-by-four, and I was gasping for breath

The avenue I followed led ale-story houses Branching frorid of other streets

More barking, another squeal, then silence

I stopped in the ht, listening intently, trying to controlI waited fortrees were as still as those that were leafless and rotting

The breath I’d outrun caught up with rew even quieter

In its current condition, Fort Wyvern is most comprehensible to me if I think of it as a theme park, a twisted Disneyland created by Walt Disney’s evil twin Here the guiding theic and wonder but weirdness and menace, a celebration not of life but of death

As Disneyland is divided into territories--Main Street USA, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, Fantasyland--Wyvern is composed of many attractions These three thousand s which I now stood, constitute the "land" that I call Dead Town If ghosts walked in any neighborhood of Fort Wyvern, this would be the place where they would choose to do their haunting

No sound was louder than thethe clouds around itself once h I had crossed into the land of the dead without having the goodthe starlit street, seeking soht, so preternaturally still, I could easily believe thatwithin a thousand miles

Washed by the faint radiance of far nebulae, Dead Town appears to beits way toward breakfast The single-story cottages, bungalows, and duplexes are revealed in no detail, and the bare geoe of solidity, order, and purpose

Nothing ht of a full host-town reality Indeed, on soutters droop from rusted fasteners Clapboard walls, once pristine white andMany of the s are broken, yawning like hungry lass teeth

Because the landscape sprinkler syste are those with taproots that have found soh 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 inter, 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 theainst the possibility of future need, and no buyers exist for Wyvern Of the nu the collapse of the Soviet Union, some were sold off to civilian interests, transfor California’s central coast, vast reaches of open land, soeles, 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 une program, and since many of them resided on-base and had little coone Abandone under which this work has long been performed

I reached an intersection, where I stopped to listen When the restless ain, I turned in a full circle, studying the ranks of houses, the lunar-resistant darkness between theloo Wyvern, I beco 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 rip was impressed into my damp palm

I consultedout of the street to a leafy Indian laurel, I unclipped the phone froainst the tree

Bobby Halloway, my best friend for iven the most private of these to no more than five friends, and he answers that line at any hour I keyed in the nu: "This better be ih I believed that I was alone in this part of Dead Town, I spoke softly: "Were you sleeping?"

"Eating kibby"

Kibby is Mediterranean cuisine: ground beef, onion, pine nuts, and herbs wrapped in ait hat?"

"Cucumbers, tomatoes, some pickled turnip"

"At least I didn’t call when you were having sex"

"This is worse"

"You’re way serious about your kibby"

"So entirely serious"

"I’ve just been radically cla enfolded by a large collapsing wave and wiped off your board

Bobby said, "You at the beach?"

"I’uratively"

"Don’t do that"

"Soht be tapping his phone

"I hate this crap"

"Get used to it, bro"

"Kibby spoiler"

"I’ weed"