…continued from yesterday.

2.

I was the next one to notice something strange going on with the weigh stations. We were about three hours outside of Albuquerque, New Mexico. I was pulling an all-nighter on my Gameboy.

Mom always said I had doglike hearing. If I hadn’t heard the high pitched humming as we approached the ramp to the weigh station my attention may have never diverted from the game. But even with my headphones on and the vibration of the tires it still hit me like an ice cold shower.

I sat straight up in my seat and looked out the window. That’s when I saw where the sound was coming from. As we cruised past the on-ramp to the abandoned weigh station I saw the same light Dani had seen just a few days earlier. Like a fiery orange glow that flashed out of the gatehouse and then seemed to surround the whole area before receding back within a split second. I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and blinked a few times, but I knew what I had seen was real.

“Daaniiiii,” I whisper-hissed. “Wake up! Wake up! I saw the light too…just now as we passed that weigh station.”

“You did? You saw it? Was it orange?”

“Yes! It was an orange glow, just like you said…”

“Hey, why aren’t you guys sleeping? What are you whispering about back there?” I guess dad wasn’t totally asleep at the wheel.

“I saw the same light back there at the weigh station that Dani saw…and this time I heard a high pitched whistle too. Did you hear it?”

“I didn’t hear or see anything. My eyes have been on the road and who can hear anything above your mom’s Garth Brooks CD anyway?”

“Hey, it’s either that or Hanson,” mom tried to defend herself. “Take your pick.”

“Garth Brooks!” Dad, Dani & I said, in unison.

With that, everything returned to normal.

3.

The panorama of the lights of Albuquerque at night as you near the city is something you won’t forget if you get the chance to see it. Only one other city that I’ve been to – Quiti, Ecuador – nestled in the Andes mountains, could rival it’s beauty.

We wound our way down towards the city. Dad was fumbling with the triptiks looking for the one that would lead us to our next La Quinta. We would eat breakfast, do some sight-seeing, shower, dad would sleep a little. We left around 3 AM for Flagstaff, AZ.

4.

You know that excited feeling…when everything is going right and you can’t wait to get to your destination, cause it’s bound to be so much fun?

Yeah, well that wasn’t how we felt by this point. The pace was wearing on everyone, nerves were frayed. Even though we had a break in Albuquerque, it wasn’t enough. Even the minivan was feeling the strain. Camping in Flagstaff would certainly do the trick to stretch our legs.

Except, we never made it to Flagstaff.

Halfway between Albuqurque and Flagstaff the air conditioning in the van went out. If it had been daytime we probably would have been fried out there like eggs on a hot griddle. Fortunately, it was early morning, so it just felt like we were in a sauna, but without the cedar fragrance.

In some ways, out there, dawn is even eerier than the pitch black night. When it’s totally dark you can’t really see anything moving in the distance. At dawn you can just start to make out some shapes, but have no idea what they are.

The minivan gurgled to a complete stop about an hour outside of Flagstaff on some “scenic highway” the AAA said was a must. (Really? How many different ways can the desert look? The whole thing is one big “scenic” landscape.)

We didn’t dare say a word. Mom, Dani & I just looked at each-other. Dad got out and started fiddling with the hoses and thingamabobbers under the hood. About 20 minutes later he came back looking very dejected, “I have no idea what the Sam Hill is wrong with this thing.”

Dani & I tried to hold back a giggle. It wasn’t very hard though, because after we got over the initial humor of dad’s euphemism we realized we were stuck. In the middle of the desert. In the middle of summer. With our parents.

Dad whipped out his cellphone and dialed AAA. Oh wait, it’s 1996 – strike that – we had absolutely no way of reaching the outside world. Fortunately, we had camping gear and could run the cooler on the minivan’s battery…for about an hour.

Dad decided to consult the maps inside the triptiks and found a rest area about five miles farther down the road, where he figured there would be a pay-phone & vending machines.

Dad was willing to make the hike himself but mom was afraid for him to leave the three of us behind in the van. She thought it was better that we all stay together.

So the four of us shed most of our clothing, grabbed some bottled water and put on our hiking boots. Dad locked the minivan and stuck a red windbreaker in the trunk hatch. (So that the police would know that the van wasn’t abandoned. Umm, what police?) Then we departed. “Wait, dad! Can you unlock the van again so I can grab my Walkman?” He sighed, “hurry up!”

Looking back, if he had balked at my request to get my Walkman, it’s quite possible that none of us would have survived the next 24 hours.

5.

After about two miles Dani & I were pretty sure we were going to die. The sun was rising fast & hot and it felt like every inch the sun rose depleted the air of more oxygen. We didn’t even have a chance to get sweaty, the heat just evaporated it right off our skin.

Mom thought dad was hallucinating at first when he suddenly said that he thought he saw a weigh station about 3/4 miles up the highway. “No really, I think I can see the sign for it and make out the shape of the gatehouse.”

It was enough hope to put a little more spring in our step and make us quicken the pace. Dani was the only one that felt hesitant about it. “I don’t want to go there daddy, those places scare me.” She sounded sincerely afraid.

“They’re just places where the trucks are weighed, Danielle, they’re owned by the State. They’re perfectly safe.” Mom tried to reassure her.

“Yeah, but James & I have both seen weird lights coming out of them, in the middle of the night. And James heard a strange sound. What if it’s abandoned and robbers live in there?”

“Why would criminals pick a remote stretch of desert to prey on their victims?” Dad tried to reason. “They’d have like one victim a year.”

That did seem logical. Besides, if there were people there, I wanted to ask them about the lights & that high-pitched sound.

6.

By the time we reached the ramp to the weigh station nobody even noticed the tiny, broken “CLOSED – NO TRESPASSING” sign that was barely hanging from a fence next to the roadway. I doubt it would have dissuaded us anyway. Dad was determined to find a pay-phone somewhere on this property and the rest of us just wanted a place to sit down and cold water to drink.

It was obvious that the State was no longer maintaining the property. There were empty beer bottles and other trash strewn around here & there. There were even some ashes inside what looked like a make-shift fire pit some teenagers probably made to come out here and get into trouble.

I decided to turn off my Walkman to conserve the batteries while I was looking around. Plus I wanted to see if I could hear that high-pitched buzzing sound again.

We poked around the grounds for about 15 minutes. Everything was completely shuttered. There was actually a telephone booth on the far side of the gatehouse but the receiver had been yanked off of it and now just some loose wires hung from where the receiver should have been.

Dad tried to look into the gatehouse windows but they were too dirty and too well sealed to see anything inside. He tried the door handles, just for good measure. They were rusted shut. There was a garage door on one side that was triple padlocked.

“It’s obvious this place is no longer in service and was abandoned long ago. I don’t really think we should be here. Isn’t this trespassing?” Maybe it was women’s intuition, but the uncharacteristic concern in mom’s voice was apparent and unsettling.

“I guess you’re right. It’s almost noon, we should probably move along. There’s no point in lingering here I suppose,” Dad said with an air of defeat.

We started to retie our shoes and gather our packs when out-of-nowhere we heard a soft clicking noise coming from somewhere around the side door of the gatehouse which was about 18 feet from where we stood.

“Did you hear that?” Dad asked. We all nodded our heads. “I recognize that sound from somewhere…”

“What was it?” Asked mom & Dani.

“I don’t know…” Dad trailed off as he walked back over towards the doorway. I followed him. We looked the doorway up & down, back & forth. Dad put his ear up to the door. But we no longer heard the “clicking.”

We were about to give up when suddenly it hit him. “That’s the sound…wait a minute…” I don’t know what possessed him but he pulled his Swiss Army knife out of his pocket, opened the blade and reached up to the security light that was hung above the doorway. He started scraping at the oversized chrome fixture that hung above the light bulb. The paint flaked off of it easily, revealing what looked to me like a metal ball inside.

I think we both let out an audible gasp when, with three fast clicks, the eye of a camera shifted to look down, directly at us.

7.

What happened next is still somewhat of a blur.  But I remember the harsh, scraping metal sound the garage door made as it flew open…

to be continued…