Free Hunting Season by P. T. Deutermann

security fences and a wide, quiet creek flowing out of the interior of
    the installation The creek had been routed under the fences through a concrete conduit five feet in diameter that slanted down from the higher ground of the installation. There had been a heavy re bar grating out on the exterior side of the tunnel. It had looked intact, until he inspected it and found that the part below the surface of the water had long since rusted away.
    The creek widened considerably when it came out of the reservation, and the deep pool below the conduit showed evidence of being a local fishing hole, despite all the toxic-waste SITE signs decorating the fences.
    According to the book, the arsenal encompassed about 2,400 acres, but the industrial heart of it appeared to be much smaller than that, if the pictures in the book were accurate. The bulk of the installation’s acreage was occupied by the extensive bunker fields, where the Army’s freshly minted ammunition had been stored. At least that’s what the book implied; one never knew what other things the government might have secreted out here on a restricted area in the southwestern foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. The place was sufficiently remote and secure as to contain damn near anything. He didn’t care about munitions; he wanted to know if the kids had ever come here. There had been no mention in the book of any Site R. He had considered walking the entire perimeter, to see if he could find any better prospects for easy access, but doing that covertly would entail at least several days. No, he had concluded, it was more important to get inside and do his looking there, where, if the kids had run into trouble, he might find signs of it. 7/’this was the place, of course.
    Knowing his chances were slim to begin with, he sighed and got out. It was better than brooding in the cabin, and a lot more than the Bureau had done.
    Birds were beginning to stir in the trees, but there was still little light.
    The mountains to the east would mask the direct sunrise for another hour and a half yet. The sky was clear and it was almost cold, in the low fifties.
    If there were Saturday fishermen coming, he should have at least an hour to get through the one very visible access point: the tunnel. He stripped off his shoes, jeans, and shirt and slipped into the wet suit: bottom, top, hood, mask, and boots. He put his street clothes back into the truck and took out a sealed waterproof duffel bag, which had a short lanyard ending in a snap attached to one end. He locked up the truck, put the keys in the exhaust pipe, and then headed for the pool.
    The water was slightly colder than the air, but his only exposure was the skin of his face. He paddled out to the lip of the tunnel, towing the bag behind him. It was dark in the tunnel as he pushed the bag
    under the rusting teeth of the re bar grate, and then he ducked under and pulled himself up into the stream flowing over the lip of the tunnel. The concrete was slippery with old moss and he immediately found himself sliding backward, catching himself at the last moment against the top half of the grating. The structure swayed ominously, dropping bits of rusted metal all over him. He got one arm onto dry concrete on the side of the tunnel and worked his way back in, away from the grate. He then crawled on all fours through the stream, towing the bag behind him. The other end of the tunnel was about 150 feet away, visible as a pale circle of light against the blackness in the tunnel. He had to fight his way past a tree snag that was jammed across the tunnel about halfway in. Something dropped from the snag and went slithering past him in the dark water, but he pressed on.
    He knew that a snake’s first instinct would be to get away from him. What he didn’t know was whether or not the grate on the other end was intact.
    There wasn’t a grate at all. The tunnel opening gave onto a concrete sided high-walled penstock shaped like a broad