Faint light from the hatchway reached tentatively into the bay but failed to reveal anything. He took a cautious step inside. The air smelled heavily of industrial grease—the old stuff, made from oil, not the stuff they mostly used in town that was made from animal fat; and there were other smells. Dust, animal dung, and some sharp chemical smells that reminded him of the kind of booze that Charlie Pink-eye and his crew drank. Stuff Mr. Lafferty at the general store sold as whiskey but that Morgie Mitchell’s dad used to call “rotgut.” And the ever-present stink of death. It wasn’t as strong as the other smells, but it was there.

All they could see were dozens of crates lashed together with nylon bands and secured to metal rings set in the floor. Most of the crates were made from some tough-looking plastic; but a few were metal and the biggest were wooden.

“What can you see?” whispered Nix.

“Nothing much. Bunch of big crates and boxes.”

“Boxes of what?”

“Don’t know. Probably not puppies, apple pie, and new baseball gloves. Pretty much bet on that.”

He took a few steps inside, listening for sounds and hearing only his own nervous breathing. The cargo bay stretched past the stacks of crates and vanished into the gloom. He had all-weather matches in his vest, but he didn’t really want to put down his sword long enough to fish one out and light it. Not yet.

The floor creaked under his weight, and Benny remembered all the cracks he’d seen in the plane’s crippled body.

A soft scuff behind him told him that Nix had entered the bay.

“You have your gun out?” he asked very quietly.

“Yes.”

“Put it away. I don’t want to get a bullet in the back because another mouse jumps out at us.”

She muttered something, but he heard the scrape of metal on leather as she holstered it.

Benny’s night vision was kicking in, and he was able to make out some details. There were words stenciled in black on some of the cases, and Benny mouthed them as he read the closest ones. The wooden boxes had labels like:

MRE

LAB EQUIP

MED RECS

HAZMAT SUITS

The metal cases were labeled:

RPG

CLAYMORE MINES

LAW RKTS

M-249 SAW

M24 SWS

“What is this stuff?” Benny asked.

“I have no idea. It must all be lab equipment and science stuff.”

Benny nodded and moved a few steps deeper into the darkness.

“Do you hear anything?” whispered Nix.

“No. You?”

“No.”

“That’s good,” said Benny, and mentally added, I think.

He moved a few steps forward, trying to sort out and identify the shapes of things he saw. The pale light was too weak, and the shadows of the bay seemed impenetrable.