Cast From the Gods
James Rada, Jr.
The Catoctin Banner presents a continuation of fiction serials for your enjoyment. “Cast from the Gods” is a new, original serial set at Site R when it was under construction. Let us know what you think.
1: The Box
James Rada, Jr.
The Catoctin Banner presents a continuation of fiction serials for your enjoyment. “Cast from the Gods” is a new, original serial set at Site R when it was under construction. Let us know what you think.
1: The Box
Nearly every morning
in 1951, the sound of thunder—but no storm—woke anyone who tried to sleep late
near Raven Rock Mountain. At first, the phenomena created curiosity until
people realized that their newest neighbor—the federal government—was building
under the mountain, something top secret.
No one was quite sure what it was,
but the government had taken over four properties in Adams County,
Pennsylvania, along the Mason-Dixon Line that amounted to 280 acres, including
Raven Rock Mountain. Blasting into the mountain had started in January.
Occasionally, a few people gathered
near the gate on Harbaugh Valley Road to watch the empty dump trucks enter the
newly created hole in the side of the mountain and then leave heaping with
debris.
“I tell you they’re mining,” Rob
Fairbanks said, as he watched a truck roll through the gate and onto the road.
“Mining what?” Don Parker asked.
“There’s no metals or minerals worth mining in there. Rock, yep, but they could
get rock from a quarry. They’re building something in there.”
So, the debate went with one side
saying the government found something to mine, and the other side saying the
government was building a secret installation. Occasionally, someone threw out
an odd theory. The government was searching for something buried in the
mountain. They were building a back way into Shangri-La, the President’s
hideaway a few miles away on Catoctin Mountain.
Whatever was happening, the trucks
kept entering empty and leaving full.
A siren sounded, and a few minutes
later, the debaters heard the thunder without rain. The mountain seemed to
shake, but it could have just been the ground beneath their feet, trembling. No
tell-tale dust cloud rose into the air to tell you where the explosion
occurred, and the mountain muffled much of the explosive sounds.
Bruce Nelson waited along with the
rest of his work crew outside of the entrance into the mountain. Powerful fans
vented the cavern slowly forming beneath the mountain of dust-sized debris.
He waited 10 minutes and walked into
the cavern with his flashlight to check if the air was clear. It was hard
enough keeping the area properly ventilated. He didn’t need his men inhaling
dirt floating in the air. He was the foreman on this project, so it was his
call whether it was safe to re-enter the cavern.
No dirt and debris danced in the air
reflected by his flashlight beam. He waved his crew in. Backhoes, bulldozers,
and dump trucks disappeared into the ground. The backhoes were a new technology
that certainly improved the speed of the job. The metal arms could reach into
the debris and lift out large boulders that just a few years ago would have
needed to be broken up.
What had been a solid mountain only a
few months ago was slowly being hollowed out by the federal government. Each
day, the cavern grew larger, as different work crews excavated toward the
center of the mountain and hundreds of feet belowground.
Bruce wasn’t entirely sure why he was
being tasked to build this cavern, but the pay was good.
He watched a backhoe remove a ton of
newly created debris and drop it into the back of a dump truck. When the truck
was full, Bruce waved at the driver to head out and dump his load. He walked
over to look at the pile of rock and dirt to see whether anything still needed
to be broken down to smaller rocks. The next truck backed into the spot vacated
by the first truck.
Klieg lights shone on the pile so that the
backhoe operators could see what they were doing. The pile of rock was at least
15 feet high inside a cavern that was 40 feet tall and growing.
Bruce tread carefully. He didn’t want to twist an ankle or start a rock
slide. A boulder caught his attention, and he knelt down beside it. It looked
like the point of a three-sided pyramid. The edges were sharp and the sides
smooth, unlike any other piece of rock in this cavern.
He grabbed it in his gloved hand and tried to
tug it loose. It didn’t give. He brushed away some of the surrounding debris
and saw that the sides continued to grow wider. The smoothness also continued.
How could a rock shear so cleanly on three sides?
Bruce leaned closer to the rock.
Something about it was odd. He took his canteen from his belt and splashed some
water on one side. The dust washed away, and the boulder gleamed. It was metal.
Then it dawned on Bruce what he was seeing.
He stood up. “I need the rock
breakers over here!” he called.
Half a dozen men walked over,
carrying shovels and picks. Bruce pointed to the exposed metal.
“I need you to free this metal box,”
Bruce said.
“How did a metal box get in here?”
Harv Worthington asked.
“What’s in it?” Joe Jeffries added.
No one asked the question bothering
Bruce. What sort of metal could withstand having all that debris fall on it and
still appear smooth and unflawed? It had no pitting or scratches.
Bruce stepped back and let his crew
get to work. It took them about an hour to uncover the box. Even uncovered, it
was too heavy for 10 men to lift. It was roughly 12 feet long, 4 feet wide, and
2 feet tall. The measurements were the only thing rough about it. It was smooth
all over, except for some odd characters on the side of the box.
He had men bring in buckets of water
to rinse off the box. With the dirt gone, Bruce could see a thin seam that ran
around all four sides, a few inches from the top, although he couldn’t see
hinges or a lock.
Bruce pointed to the markings on the top. They were a series of straight
lines, wavy lines, and dots. If not for the wavy lines, he would have thought
it was Morse Code, which he had learned in the Army during the war.
“Anybody know what these are?” he
asked.
“Hieroglyphics?” Joe suggested.
“They use pictures,” Bruce said.
“They aren’t letters,” Patrick
O’Hearn said.
“I know that.”
Patrick shook his head. “No, I mean letters
like the Chinese use.”
Jack Standing Bear bent over and ran
his fingers across the characters. His brow furrowed, and he jumped back.
“Recognize them?” Bruce asked.
The Cherokee shook his head. Then he
turned and walked away.
Bruce didn’t believe him, but he
couldn’t do anything about it. He turned back to the box. “It looks like it has
a lid. Help me pry it off,” he said to no one in particular.
He took a pick from Harv and used the
blade as a lever. He tried to wedge it into the seam, but he couldn’t get it to
hold. After the third try, Bruce threw the pick down in frustration.
“What do you think’s inside?” Harv
asked.
“What else? Treasure,” Peter
Montgomery replied.
“We’re not going to know until we get
that lid off,” Bruce told them.
He walked over to the backhoe
operator, talked to him for a minute, and walked back to the waiting crew.
“Step back,” Bruce said. “I’m going
to have the backhoe open it.”
The backhoe arm first tried breaking
through the top of the box, but nothing happened. The arm didn’t even scratch
the surface. Then it lifted the edge of the box and dropped it, hoping to jar
the lid loose. Again, nothing happened. Finally, the backhoe turned the box on
its side and hit the lid repeatedly.
The seam widened.
The backhoe tipped the box back. Then
it scraped along the side of the box, trying to catch the seam. Bruce had his
men wedge their picks and shovels into the seam, trying to widen it.
With a whoosh, a hard wind blew out
from the box, carrying with it a foul smell. The men staggered back under the
force of the wind.
“What was that?” someone shouted.
Bruce approached the box slowly. The
lid had come loose and lay slightly askew. He tried to push it aside, but it
was too heavy.
“Help me with this,” he called.
The crew of men grabbed the edges of
the box, and together they managed to open the box enough so they could see
inside.
Bruce pulled a flashlight from his
belt and turned it on so that he could clearly see what was in the box.
He wished he hadn’t.
