Chapter Five
THE trip to Los Angeles went fine, and the papers were delivered on time. The return trip, however, was a horse of a different color.
For starters, Gomer had misplaced the road map of Southern California and somehow landed them on a deserted country road. Naturally, Carter was greatly upset with him about that. In the hopes that the map was still in the car, Gomer and Boyle searched for it in the glove compartment while Carter drove.
"Golly, Sergeant," Gomer said, holding up some dried fruit. "Where did this come from?"
"Yeah, Vince. And this." Boyle held up a little black book, full of womens' phone numbers.
"Give me that!" Carter yelled frantically. In reaching for the black book, the Jeep swerved slightly out of control. Gomer tried to help him steer it right, but it wound up going in circles.
"Hey, Vince?" Boyle said, dizzily watching the same deserted scene go round and round. "Isn't this a little unorthodox?"
Annoyed, Carter finally straightened out the Jeep's direction.
After a few more miles, the Jeep started making funny wheezing sounds.
"Golly, Sergeant, it sounds like something's goin' out," Gomer exclaimed.
"Yeah, Vince. Cars don't make that sound when they're merrily going on their way," Boyle agreed.
The car bumped along for half a mile more, then conked out, right in front of a spooky old mansion. And then something under the hood exploded, sending the Jeep a inch or so in the air. It came back down with a start.
The Marines just stared ahead for a few minutes, as if in stupors. Finally, Gomer got out of the Jeep and walked over to the hood. He slammed it down in horror as soon as it came up.
"Well, what is it, Pyle?" Carter asked, miffed at the delay.
"The engine blew up," Gomer declared. "There'll definitely be no more drivin' for this Jeep until we get her fixed."
"What'll we do?" Carter exclaimed. "We've got to get back to the base!"
"Well, Vince, we could go knock on that door and see if the people there will let us use their phone," Boyle suggested, pointing at the mansion.
Gomer looked at it doubtfully. "I don't know. It don't look like nobody's home, Sergeant."
Carter was already climbing out of the car. "Well, it never hurts to try."
The three Marines opened the rusty gate and walked up the driveway, glancing here and there at the foliage that completely enclosed the manor.
"Golly!" Gomer said softly. "I've never seen anything like it! Isn't it fascinating, Sergeant?"
Carter looked at Gomer, slightly miffed.
"Doesn't look like this house has been occupied in years," Boyle remarked. "Look at all those weeds growing up out of the driveway cracks!"
They walked up on the porch. Carter was just going to ring the doorbell when a bloodcurdling scream was heard.
"What was that?" Boyle exclaimed.
"Golly, Sergeant, screams like those always give me goosepimples," Gomer said, shaking a little. "What in the world's goin' on? Something must be happenin'! Maybe someone's being kidnapped!"
"Oh, Pyle!" Carter brushed the idea aside, disgusted. But even though he claimed he didn't think anything was amiss, he sent Boyle around back to look around.
"Sergeant, this place gives me the creeps," Gomer whispered. "And I think Corporal Boyle's right. No one's probably lived here for years!"
"Well, I imagine he's right, Pyle. Maybe we ought to go," Carter relented. "But how can we walk to the next town? It's miles away!"
A strange howl was heard from inside.
"Shazam! Sergeant, it sounded like a werewolf!" Gomer cried.
"Pyle, don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing as werewolves!"
"Well, then, maybe it's a ghost!"
"There aren't any ghosts, either, Pyle."
Nevertheless, when Boyle returned from checking things out in the backyard, Carter jumped a mile.
Boyle was puzzled. "Vince! What's the matter?"
"Don't pretend to be Boyle, you ghost!" Carter screamed.
"But, Sergeant . . ." Gomer protested, trying in vain to get Carter to listen.
"Ghost?" Boyle started to laugh.
Carter slowly and cautiously turned around. "Oh, it's you, Boyle," he said, attempting to conceal his fright.
"Sure it's me, Vince! I'm no ghost!" To Gomer in a low voice, Boyle said, "What's gotten into him, anyway?"
Before Gomer could explain about the howl, Carter broke in hastily. "Well, Boyle, what's going on back there?"
"I couldn't see anyone, Vince. All I found was a handkerchief with the initials ‘A.M.' on it." He held up a small, white handkerchief.
"This mystery is getting more puzzling by the minute!" Carter grumbled, exasperated. "Nothing connects. Nothing makes sense." He threw up his hands in disgust. "Now how does this fit in, huh? Tell me that. There's not another house around for miles, we hear a bloodcurdling scream, and when you go to investigate, there's nothing! How could anyone get away that fast? There's not a road on the other side of the house!"
He was just going to suggest they try walking to the nearest town when suddenly a trap door in the porch opened and they all fell through.
"Golly, Sergeant, we must be in the coal cellar!"
Carter looked at Gomer as if to say ‘Isn't that obvious?,' since coal was stacked everywhere.
Boyle searched for a door. "Well, there must be a way out of here. A ladder or a staircase or something leading to the main part of the house."
He turned on the flashlight he'd brought with him and shined it around.
"Here's a ladder," he concluded, pointing to a wooden one with dust caked on it.
"Golly! This ladder hasn't been used in at least fifteen years!" Gomer exclaimed.
They cautiously climbed up. When they reached the top, another trap door opened up into the kitchen.
It was an old-fashioned one, with a coal stove and a dumbwaiter and a water pump. An oil lamp hung above them.
"Looks like a turn-of-the-century kitchen," Boyle remarked.
"I sure feel funny about goin' through someone else's house, even if no one lives here anymore," was Gomer's reply.
"We're going to go, Pyle," Carter assured him. "I never wanted to come in such an unorthodox way. We'll just look around for a telephone to call a tow truck."
They wandered into a large living room, full of old furniture, half of which was covered in sheets. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling.
"You know, Sergeant," Gomer began, "I saw this movie once, called The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, and it was all about a creepy old haunted house like this one . . ."
"Wait a minute, Pyle," Carter interrupted. "Who s-said this h-house is h-haunted?" He was starting to get spooked by the weird place, but didn't want anyone to know it. He noticed an especially large, white sheet floating around on a coat hanger and jumped.
"Actually, Vince," Boyle said, an amused twinkle in his eye, "you yourself seem to think it is."
Carter turned to glare at him. "Don't be silly, Boyle! I never t-thought t-this h-house w-was h-haunted!"
"Oh, no?"
They walked on.
"Sergeant, I hate to say this, but maybe there's dishonest people here and they'd throw one of those things in the room to make us all pass out . . ."
"P*Y*L*E!!!" Carter was not in the mood to hear Gomer's spooky criminals-might-be-running-around speeches.
Boyle spoke seriously, but one could tell he was amused. "Well, Vince, it could happen."
"Are you going to start up now, too?" Carter snapped.
"Vince, have you seen Pyle lately?" he asked, glancing around.
"No, I haven't seen him. I thought he was with you."
"Well, he's not with me, Vince," Boyle said gravely. "He's disappeared!"
"Huh?" Carter looked wildly around. "He is gone, Boyle! Where'd he go?" He went racing down the hall calling to him. Boyle remained in the living room to look around in there.
After several minutes had passed, Gomer suddenly appeared. He spotted Boyle and went over to him.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" was his greeting.
"Pyle! Where you been?" Boyle asked. "And what's with this ‘thank you' bit?"
"Well, I never would have gotten out of that closet if you hadn't pushed me," Gomer responded.
"Huh? Pyle, I didn't push you out of any closet! I've been looking for you, and so is Vince!"
Gomer was taken aback. "Shazam! Somebody pushed me, and if it wasn't you nor the Sergeant, then who was it?"
"Search me."
Carter happened to come back into the room just then and Gomer repeated his story to him.
Carter's eyes darted about suspiciously. "Are you sure it wasn't some board falling over and pushing you, Pyle?"
Gomer shook his head. "Oh, no, Sergeant, it was definitely a human being."
"Maybe it was a ghost!" Carter said in a hushed voice.
"Vince! How could a ghost push someone out of a closet?"
Carter sighed. "Well, you're probably right, Boyle. Maybe it was a crook."
"Golly! If it was a crook, we'd need to call the police!" Gomer looked around, pretty much expecting that there wouldn't be a telephone.
"We'll just have to walk to the next town," Carter resoluted. "Now if we could only find the front door."
Somehow they had wandered into the large hall and into a vacant room with no furniture.
"Golly, Sergeant, how could we ever walk to town in a storm like this?" Gomer exclaimed.
"Well," Carter said reluctantly, "we couldn't. We'll just have to wait here till the rain lets up. Right, Boyle?"
No answer.
"Boyle? Boyle?" Carter sounded more and more doubtful with each call of his name.
"Shazam! Sergeant, he's gone!" Gomer proclaimed.
Carter looked around the room. "Yeah, he sure is, isn't he?" He headed out of the room. "C'mon, Pyle. We'll have to go look for him."
A cold chill ran up Gomer's spine. Where was he? Had he been locked in a closet? Or had some other fate befallen him? And who had screamed, and why?
Gomer played the flashlight over the furniture and into closets.
"Gosh," Carter said after they'd searched the library, "he sure isn't around here."
"Well, where is he, Sergeant?" Gomer worried. "He'd never leave to explore without telling us. He's not the daredevil type!"
"That's for sure."
The staircase loomed before them. Gomer shined the flashlight up the stairs.
"Well, Pyle, should we look up there?" Carter voiced Gomer's thoughts.
"Anywhere, Sergeant! We'll have to look anywhere and everywhere!" Gomer replied.
As they climbed the creaking staircase, Gomer constantly spooked Carter with his tales.
"If there's dishonest people in here, Sergeant,—though I hate to think it—they could just sneak up and knock us clean out! Maybe they've got some crooked operation underway and they'd do that so's they could get us out of the house! We'd come to lyin' in some field!"
"Pyle . . ."
"Or," Gomer continued, rambling right on, "they might kidnap us and hold us for ransom! Or even . . ."
Carter didn't want to hear anymore. "P*Y*L*E!!!"
Gomer paused.
"Pyle, do you think for one moment that I'm going to listen to you jabber away about such things?"
"But Sergeant . . ."
"No buts, Pyle!" Carter interrupted. "You are going to stop this minute, and that's an order!"
Gomer shrugged. "Well, alright, Sergeant. If you say so. I was just thinkin' that we need to be prepared for such things. After all, they do happen."
"Pyle!" Carter sighed, exasperated.
"Well, where can we look now, Pyle?"
Silence.
"Pyle? Pyle?"
He whirled around.
"He's gone too," Carter said disbelievingly. "I'm all alone!"
"This sure is a strange place, isn't it, Sergeant?"
He stopped. He realized that he hadn't heard any other footsteps other than his own.
"Sergeant Carter? Sergeant Carter?"
No use calling anymore, he decided. I guess Sergeant Carter must still be on the other side of the passage way. Golly. I'm all alone!
He beamed the flashlight on a suit of armor up ahead. Shazam, he thought. What's a suit of armor doing in a secret passage way?
Suddenly the lid opened, and several pigeons flew out. One landed on Gomer's shoulder.
"Well, hello, girl!" Gomer greeted her. "What're you and your friends doin' in here? I could sure use some company right now. And so could Sergeant Carter and Corporal Boyle. They're both all alone. We all got separated."
The pigeon cooed.
"Let's see," Gomer mused. "What can we call you?" He thought a moment. "I know! How about ‘Adelina'? You're named for my cousin back home in Mayberry." To two other pigeons, he said, "Why don't you girls go find Sergeant Carter and Corporal Boyle?"
The pigeons flew off.
"Do you belong to a magician or somethin'? As far as I know, only a magician would keep pigeons in a suit of armor."
Adelina looked at him with her bright gray eyes.
"You sure are a pretty little thing," Gomer said admiringly. "If you don't belong to anyone, I wish I could take you back with me to my Marine base. But the only animals allowed there are trained police dogs."
Adelina flew ahead a few feet, then turned around as if telling Gomer to follow.
"I'm coming, Adelina," Gomer assured her. "Maybe you can lead me to my friends. And a working telephone. You see, we need to call a tow truck to help repair our Jeep. The engine blew up and we'll have to get a new one. There's no way you can drive a Jeep around without an engine."
He and Adelina explored the secret passage way, trying desperately to find their way out.
"Do you think your friends got out?" Gomer asked her. "I hope so, and I hope they were able to find Sergeant Carter and Corporal Boyle.
"If there's no working telephone around here we'll have to walk to the next town," Gomer continued, "but we'd have to wait for the rain to let up first."
They arrived at a huge wall.
"Golly, Adelina, is this just a wall or a moving panel?" Gomer wondered. He prepared to try and move it. "Well, I guess there's only one way to find out."
He tried to push it open. It slid open quite easily. Gomer and his pigeon friend found themselves in the large kitchen.
"Shazam! We're in the kitchen!" Gomer exclaimed as he and Adelina looked around.
He noticed the dumbwaiter.
"Well, look at that, Adelina! It's been a long time since I rode in one of those." He reminisced for a moment. "In fact, the last time was when I was only seven. My Grandma Pyle had one of those in her old kitchen and I used to love riding in it." He grinned mischievously at the pigeon. "Shall we take a ride in it, Adelina?"
Gomer was just going to open the door when he heard a strange sound.
"Golly, Adelina, what's that?" he wondered.
He was just going to go check it out when someone grabbed him. The unseen assailant clamped a hand over his mouth so he couldn't scream, carried him down the hall, and locked him in a closet in the back bedroom. Then he carried Adelina the pigeon away, while she shrieked in protest.
As he walked around the old-fashioned room, he noticed the dumbwaiter and stepped over to it.
Maybe this thing can take me to a floor where the others are! he hoped.
He opened the door, and was just going to go in, when he heard a creaking noise.
Carter glanced around, but saw nothing. Oh, well. Probably just the wind rocking that chair on the porch, he decided.
The sound persisted.
Carter nervously wandered away from the dumbwaiter and across the room. He leaned against the wall, trying to locate the source of the creak.
Suddenly, without warning, the entire wall turned around, sending Carter into a hidden room!
