Buried Dreams Read Online Free Page B

for a bomb shelter, during the cold war, when Samson Point was a radar station looking for Soviet bombers?"
    "No, teacher," I said, trying to keep my voice soft.  "I didn't know."
    He took a breath, seemed to relax. "Sorry. I do go on, I know. I get passionate about history, and its mysteries." Then his head tilted some and said, "Speaking of mysteries... When Samson Point was shut down, back in 1963, your house had been used as a record storage area. Then it was transferred to the Department of Interior, and there it sat, year after year, boarded up and dusty. Until you came along."
    "Unh-hunh." Since I had been retired from the Department of Defense (officially, for medical reasons, unofficially, for being the sole survivor of a particularly nasty and illegal training disaster), the question of how I actually got to live in this particular building occasionally came up with friends and acquaintances I've made during my time at Tyler Beach. And I have yet to have come up with a satisfactory reply for any of them. Like tonight.
    "Not much of an answer," he said.
    "Sorry, didn't hear a question there."
    "All right," Jon said, a hesitant smile on his face. "I've always wondered how a house that belonged to the government came to be in your possession."
    "Just one of those things."
    "Really?"
    "Yep."
    Jon said, "Before you came here, you used to work at the Department of Defense. Then you left your job abruptly, and came to Tyler Beach, moving into a house with lots of history and which belonged to the government. How did that happen, Lewis?"
    I waited, knowing my palms were moist. ''I'm afraid that when I left government service, Jon, I had to sign a nondisclosure form about my service and reasons for leaving. Sorry."
    He went back to the map. "Must have been a hell of a thing, then."
    "Yeah," I said, not wanting to remember. "It was a hell of a thing."
     
     
     
    At the High Street Cemetery, our little procession came to a halt as the rain decided to return with a vengeance, making the tombstones look old and worn. My shoes splashed through puddles and sank into the wet grass and soil as we proceeded to an area that was marked by a light green artificial rug, a mound of dirt, and some sort of contraption with canvas webbing and metal tubing that we placed the casket on. Since there were no close relatives, the flag was folded up by the funeral home personnel, and they moved back in a little group to join the rest of us, which included a handful from the church service, including Detective Diane Woods, Paula Quinn from the Chronicle , and Felix Tinios, and the young couple. The woman had red hair, and her companion was bearded. I nodded in appreciation at all of them, and then turned to the casket, the rain beading up on the wood and dribbling down the sides.
    As someone held an umbrella over the priest, I looked at the mound of dirt, thinking about the events that had brought me here, events I had kept secret from Jon and everyone else in Tyler Beach. Once upon' a time, as so many stories begin, I had been a research analyst at the Department of Defense, working in an obscure and secretive group that read and analyzed information. One day this little group --- which included some dear friends and a woman I was madly in love with --- went on a training mission to the high desert of Nevada, where disaster fell upon us. I was the sole survivor, and in exchange for keeping my mouth shut about what I had seen and what happened to us --- a secret biowarfare experiment gone awry ---I was pensioned off, given a job as a magazine columnist, and was also given the old house that Jon Ericson had been so interested in.
    Looking at the casket, I wished I had opened my damn mouth when he had been asking so many questions.
     
     
    It had been my turn for a barbecue, and when a late summer thunderstorm came racing through, we retreated to the interior of my house. We ate cheeseburgers and potato chips and carrot sticks and drank Sam Adams