Wood & Iron

Intro

Noises.

It's odd. The more there are, the less you notice them. But take them away, and suddenly, the slightest sound is amplified.

The rustling of the wind whistling through the tall pine trees overhead...

The whistle of sprinkler heads rotating, water hitting the grass with an ever-gentle touch...

The light chug of an engine in the distance...

At some point, the rotation of the tires on the gravel service road becomes louder than the chug, until the rubber meets grass, and again it's the light chug of the engine.

A few hundred yards on the grass, and the engine halts.

For a moment, the sound ceases completely. But then the whir of the sprinkler heads... the wind in the pines. An owl moves from one branch to another. After 30 seconds, a car door disrupts the otherwise still night. Then another.

Footsteps on the grass. Multiple sets of them. Walking across the field, past a pit filled with sand, and onto the side of a grassy hill.

The wind picks up, and a small flag can be heard flapping on the other side of the mound.

They're silent, the men whose feet are on this grass. They've been here before. One of them counts his steps from the spot where the grass gets shorter. One... two... three... four.

He pulls a drill from his bag and taps it, almost silently, on the grass.

The buzz of the drill is piercing among the other muted noises in this field. They all know it's coming, but still it startles them. Every heartbeat picks up its pace as he loosens each spot in the side of this hill. One... two... three... four.

It takes two of them to lift the square piece of grass out of the ground. Six inches of soil attached to a thick piece of wood. Time and wear have made it impossible to know where the roots end and the wood begins. They set the square off to the side as quietly as they can, revealing a small door with a 1970s-style lock and latch.

"You first." The man with the drill speaks quietly, nodding to the other.

"Alright. Let's get this over with and get out of here."

And with that, they both descend through the hole in the side of the hill, the whir of the sprinkler heads and the wind in the pines the only sound left in the field.