Previously:

"Rather than go along on my way, I will stay with you 'til the bitter end. I will give you the directions to get out of here."

Tommy knew there had been enough chatter. It was time to take the next step in this quest. "Well, I think it's time we bite the proverbial bullet and find out if there is a human behind the music we are hearing."

He bowed and put his fingers to his forehead in a sign of respect. "After you, my ladies."

***********

Liz wiped her hands on her hips, connected to her rubbery legs. She turned her head back toward the one vehicle Linda had drawn her attention to, as they were walking down by hay covered cars and pickup trucks.

It did look like her 2010 Honda Fit, that was still sitting back somewhere, on the right side of the highway, headed west. The two ladies had many goals throughout their adventures: to survive, to be stealthy, to keep away from bats in a cave, and to avoid holes in cave floors plummeting an unknown measure of feet.

There was always the undercurrent focus, to get to a garage to have them find some way to fetch the battery-dead Honda. They had made it here only to be held at bay.

Linda's mind was on a different sensory plane. "I can hear the music better now. And I smell burnt coffee."

Tommy waxed poetically. "If the guy offers up a cup of 'Joe', our answer should be 'no'." Everyone laughed, all coffee connoisseurs.

Liz returned to her mantra,"Please, Wolf, please, universe, let there be someone here."

They were unsure which door they should use. The first try was futile. It was locked. The next one, even though the handle was vigorously shaken, no response.

When they walked around to the windowed garage door, there was too much dust to be able to peer inside.

"This is our last door. What're we going to do?" Liz thought she had reached her greatest level of anxiety before, but this was a different kind of fear. Her life wasn't in danger as it had been when they had to sneak around guns, to break the Native teens out of the house used by the Trafficking operators.

Linda joined Liz. "You're getting anxious, aren't you? Look at all the other times our blood pressure must have been sky-high. My knees still scream from those crawling episodes, avoiding the motion sensor light. That cave wasn't like any tourist cave. There was no elevator going up and down. But we did it. You did it, Liz."

Linda was such a good, understanding, supportive friend to Liz. "You're right, there're no words for the dread I had sitting with one leg stuck in the swamp. I should have trusted you, that you'd figure something out."

"Like now," Linda said, as she spied one more door. The sharp-eyed companion, yanked Liz toward their way in, which was camouflaged, by a ladder leaning against a door. Ironically, the ladder reached a sign with an ad for car batteries.

"Tommy, will you help us push this door open?" Liz's heart was racing.

"I wonder where this leads," Tommy said, as he used his body to edge the door open. He grew hesitant as the door resisted with a fairly loud scraping. He generously widened the gap enough, so they could each slide through.

This reminded Liz of the narrow path between rocks in the cave. She'd been worried, along with one of the other girls, that she might become wedged part way through. This was a cinch compared with the cave challenge.



In an attempt to raise everyone's hopes, Tommy announced the obvious. "Now the music is really loud. There's got to be someone here."

Tommy was the first to enter the darkened room. Taking a deep breath in, he said, letting the breath out," As long as there isn't a bag of colorful corn snakes in here, I'll be okay."

Liz realized, the trauma of that snake incident from his younger years, was being triggered by the darkness. He and his buddy, Squirrel, had been looking for food for the several families living in their house.

They had found a bulging bag of corn on the cob, but that gift was accompanied by another bag, someone's snake selling business. Anyone would be traumatized from witnessing the floor crawling with reptiles, beautiful or not.

They could see hazy light through the oil and exhaust smeared window in the door. "Ready?" Tommy pushed it open, revealing the expanse of the repair area with its bays.

As they searched for a human, they were met with a thin, high-strung man, who reminded Liz of a childhood comedian on a 50's TV show, Don Knotts. He nervously held a double-barreled shotgun. It was aimed directly at them. If that one should jam, he had another. A pistol was ready in his left-hip holster.