Matthew Silver and the Monster Hunters, Book One: The Darkest Waters

Chapter Thirty-Four

SilverCHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Late in the afternoon the next day, we finally reached the small roadside motel in Virginia. We paid our cabbie, and I added a generous tip that represented the last of our money. He thanked me profusely, but I couldn’t really take the credit for it. It’s not like it was my money.

While stealthily making our way to Room 12, we ran into another cleaning lady. “This room isn’t clean yet. I was going to change the sheets, blankets, and pillowcases,”she told us.

“Oh, that’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Take a look at this guy.”I pulled Scott forward by the arm. “See how dirty and unclean he looks?”

She nodded.

“Clean sheets will only go to waste. They’ll just get dirty right away again, you’ll have to clean more stuff, and it’ll only make more work for you,”I said in a voice that dripped in sympathy.

“Oh, you’re such an understanding, polite young man. Please, by all means, go right ahead, and if you need anything, just ask,”she told me, happy that someone could understand the difficulty of her line of work.

We entered the room saying our thanks, but as soon as the door closed, Scott punched me in the arm.

“Ow! What the heck?”I protested.

“You’re a punk, you know that?”

Jay slid her badge over the closet door handle. To all appearances, this did nothing, but the handle was actually a scanner. Like a bar code scanner in a grocery store, the handle read the badge as it passed over. There was a sliding, metallic noise from behind the closet door. When she opened the closet’s door, the familiar elevator to the Virginia Sector was waiting with open doors.

When we reached the bottom floor, we had to go through security again to get into the Sector. I was a little worried that we’d go through the same annoying guard from the last time, but I was happily surprised to find that our old friend, Richard Greene, was back on duty.

“Ricky!”I waved to him from the other side of the fence.

His face lit up with a warm smile. “Hey! Looks like you all made it back in one piece.”

Scott and I ran up to the boundary gate and greeted him from the other side. “Where you been, Ricky?”Scott asked.

“Oh, that.”He sniffled loudly and rubbed his nose, which I noticed had an unhealthy, reddish tinge. “I’ve had the flu for a couple of weeks now. I’m almost better, but I’m still a little under the weather.”

Scott winced. “Ouch.”

He rubbed his eyes. “No worries,”he said cheerfully. Ricky was that casual, easygoing guy that everybody liked. He could get along with just about anybody.

“What happened to Captain Critical from earlier?”Scott asked. He measured his hand up to his waist. “About this high. Doesn’t smile. Rule flouter. Ring any bells?”

“Who, Jameson?”

And with that, the miniscule guard from before stomped out of the guard booth and glared at me. “I see that you four made it back safe and sound.”He sounded disappointed. “I suppose there’s always next time,”he added in an undertone, but all of us heard it anyways. After giving each of us suspicious glares, he stalked back into his little booth and continued to watch us like a hawk through the window.

Ricky noticed our intense looks of dislike that followed the guard called Jameson into the booth. “Don’t worry about him. I’ll let you guys through. Jameson? Gates.”Ricky waved his hand in a sweeping motion to indicate that he needed the massive gates to open for us.