The Tunnel of Doom: The Mac 'n' Ivy Mysteries, #5

By Lorena McCourtney

Is Mac the next hot new movie star? Probably not. But he is an extra in a movie being filmed near a mysterious California mountain famed for the myths and legends surrounding it. He even gets a promotion above "extra" level; now he's lumbering around head-butting other actors as Bigfoot.

 

Ivy is mildly indignant that she's a movie-extra reject. Too short. Although her job as assistant to the ranch woman providing lunches for cast and crew does not, at least, require a costume both hairy and itchy.

 

Production of "The Tunnel of Doom" does not go smoothly. A flash-bang explosion. A dead bus. A poisoned salad. Someone is definitely determined to keep the movie from being completed.

 

And when the sabotage escalates to a murderous level, Ivy and Mac are right in the middle of it.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rogue Ridge Press
• Release date: Oct 6, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215218433

Lorena McCourtney

Lorena McCourtney is the author of 51 books of mystery and romance. She and her husband live in Southern Oregon, and she especially likes wrriting about the Oregon coast. She also enjoys the coast itself, walking the beach and searching for agates, driftwood, sand dollars, and anything else the ocean tosses up.

Book preview

THE TUNNEL OF DOOM

Book #5

The Mac ‘n’ Ivy Mysteries

by

Lorena McCourtney

Copyright ©2022 by Lorena McCourtney

Published by Rogue Ridge Press

Cover by Travis Miles

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, posted on any website, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, scanning, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author, except for brief quotations in reviews or articles.

Scripture used in this book, whether quoted or paraphrased by the characters, is taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version® (NIV®). Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

This book is a work of fiction. Certain actual locations and historical figures mentioned in the book are portrayed as accurately as possible but used in a fictional manner. All other names, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. All characters are fictional, and any similarity to people living or dead is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

E-books by Lorena McCourtney

Chapter One

IVY

Would we like to settle down and live here? Mac asked the question as our motorhome rolled through the small town in northern California. Looking for the perfect place to live wasn’t why we were here, but we looked wherever we went. And, hey, this place looked good!

People were eating at tables outside an ice cream shop, cheerful pennants on a nearby pole snapping in the breeze. I don’t see any dead bodies, I said.

No graffiti-tainted walls or sidewalk. Modest homes. Traffic busy but not gridlocked. An antique store with a metal unicorn beside the door. An old-fashioned drugstore that looked as if it might still serve the cherry cokes I was so fond of as a girl. A shopping center anchored by a big Safeway grocery. A couple of real estate offices. All with snowclad Mt. Shasta, massive and spectacular mountain of mystery and legends, looming over the town in June sunshine.

What about it, Lord? Is this the right place?

There seem to be an unusual number of New Age type shops. Mac nodded toward a window with a painting of a crystal palace glowing within the shadowy outline of a mountain. Not our thing. But I don’t see any killers skulking in the alleys.

That’s good. Although killers and their victims don’t usually make their appearance the minute we drive into a town. They tend to sneak up on us.

The possible presence of dead bodies and skulking killers probably isn’t something most seniors consider when looking for a place to live, but we’ve encountered both often enough that killer-free zone is right at the top of our must-have list. Then I spotted an unexpected sign bannered over the entrance to a three-story motel. A huge fountain gushed blue water in the center of the parking lot.

THE TUNNEL OF DOOM. Hiring extras. Register here. 9:00 a.m. June 9

Hey, you suppose they’re making a movie about one of the old lava tubes around the mountain? Along with the legends, we’d read about the actual lava tubes in our research about the mountain for Mac’s article.

Mike didn’t mention it, but maybe the movie is what got him interested in my writing about the area.

Mike is Mike Ryan, editor of an internet travel magazine which specializes in quirky travel destinations. Mac has done many articles for him both before and since we were married. I usually help with research.

Here in Mt. Shasta City, Mike wanted Mac to interview someone, or several someones, who could claim personal experience with the legends. According to the research we’d done, the old tales often centered around some mystical civilization of people known as Lemurians living in a crystal city deep beneath the mountain. They were said to have taken refuge there when their continent of Lemuria sank into the sea. There were sightings of tall figures in white robes, musical sounds of ringing bells and singing voices, lots of mystical vibes, and various unexplained disappearances of people around the mountain. In earlier years, a few storekeepers in town even claimed encounters with robed figures paying for purchases with gold nuggets. There were also a smattering of Bigfoot and UFO sightings thrown in.

I try to keep an open mind, but I have considerable skepticism about both Bigfoot and Lemurians, with or without gold nuggets. However, this universe the Lord created holds many secrets and mysteries, and maybe Lemurians and Bigfoot are among them.

Although, as usual, my little-old-lady mind wonders about practical matters. Did their toilets work way down underground? Where did the sewage go? Where did they get their groceries?

And what were those Lemurians buying in above-ground stores? Possibly life-saving medications, of course. But maybe even robed persons living in an underground crystal city get an occasional hankering for a Dr Pepper and taco chips.

We could apply to be extras in the movie, I said. Maybe they have a technical advisor with personal experience with Lemurians who could give you some good information.

Yeah, right. Maybe even a real Lemurian. With a good agent. Mac laughed, but then he tilted his head thoughtfully and surprised me. But being extras might be a good idea. I could get two articles out of this trip. One for Mike about the mountain legends and another for some other publication about experiences as a movie extra.

‘How I Rocketed from Unknown Extra to Famous Star’?

Mac laughed again. Mac laughs a lot. It’s one of the reasons I love him.

"Yeah, right. People magazine will interview me. Producers will line up to hire me. Young women will swoon when they see me. He glanced in the rearview mirror at the old Toyota pickup we pulled behind the motorhome, and grimaced. But what we need right now is a mechanic. I don’t like the sound of that transmission."

The pickup had indeed been making peculiar noises the last time we drove it, which was over in Montana where we’d parked at Mac’s son’s place for a couple months. Mac is a great fixer of many things that don’t work, but his usual tools . . . wrench, screwdriver, WD-40, and a generous supply of duct tape . . . can’t cope with a major transmission problem.

We drove on through town and found the RV park we were looking for. The manager warned we wouldn’t be able to stay more than four days because the movie crowd had rented some of their spaces, and a big travel club had reservations for the remainder of spaces that weren’t taken up by longer-term residents.

We were assigned a nice space under the trees, I fixed a taco salad for dinner, and we took BoBandy for a doggy walk around the park. My one-eyed, short-tailed, orange cat Koop, who has finally convinced me that he is no more likely to walk on a leash and harness than I am to prance around in five-inch stilettos, watched from a window in the motorhome.

**

In the morning, Mac used his cell phone to locate several vehicle repair shops, unexpectedly got an immediate appointment, and took off in the Toyota. It was still running, but barely, something internal now making noises like marbles in a meat grinder.

I puttered around in the motorhome, cleaned Koop’s litterbox, and walked BoBandy around the park again. I could vacuum, but I could not vacuum and do something more interesting. It isn’t difficult to find something more interesting than vacuuming.

Five minutes later I was walking back toward the motel where we’d seen the sign about movie extras. I texted Mac to tell him. I didn’t intend to apply to be an extra, but the mutant curiosity gene I’ve been accused of having was waggling its little gene antennas with interest. Mac texted back that he’d stop by the motel if he finished with the pickup early enough.

A fair-sized crowd milled around the fountain in the parking lot of the motel when I arrived. I thought they were eager wannabe extras until I read the signs they were carrying.

Don’t Hollywoodize the Lemurians!

Leave Our Mountain Alone!!

Don’t Disturb Our Underground Friends!!!

May the curse of the mountain come down on Cat Wallace Productions!!!!

A curse? We hadn’t run into that in our research. I also hadn’t seen that many exclamation points in quite some time.

I was stopped just inside the archway entrance into the motel parking lot to watch the protesters when someone bumped into me from behind. I turned and a teenage girl with pink hair gave me an apologetic smile.

I’m so sorry! I guess we were watching the protesters and just didn’t see you.

Maybe. Or maybe it was this aged-into-invisibility cloak I’ve had for some time. I was dismayed by it at first, but I rather like it now. Invisibility can be a handy asset when you’re chasing down a killer—or a killer is chasing you. Neither of which we were doing here, I assured myself. Maybe looking for a new home and a few Lemurians, but no dead bodies, no killers.

Are you here to protest or get jobs as extras? I asked the girls.

The shorter girl in jeans, with holes that showed a lot of thigh, giggled. We came over because we heard Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt might be in the movie.

No way. The scoff came from a woman standing nearby. She was forty-ish, tall and thin, dressed in baggy khaki pants and a shapeless dark shirt, Birkenstocks on her feet. I’d have looked bag-lady dumpy in that outfit, but she wore the clothes with a careless elegance, as if she were above such petty matters as clothes. A strip of rawhide held her blondish hair in a nondescript style, again as if outward appearances didn’t matter to her. That was just publicity hype. All they have are some unknowns. Big boobs and six-pack muscle types.

The blunt description startled me, but all I said was, What’s the protest about? Don’t the locals like the idea of a movie being made on the mountain?

These aren’t locals. They’re outsiders. The woman looked back at the milling group now organizing into lines. Their protest makes a good point. The mountain is sacred to several Native American tribes, and people shouldn’t treat it like a theme park. But I think most of the locals welcome the money filming a movie here will bring in.

I started to ask if she was a local or an outsider, but three sharp pops from the protest group interrupted. I felt a frisson of apprehension. I’m not usually given to frissons, but there’s always a potential for violence in any protest, even one with excessive exclamation points.

It’s just that guy over there popping balloons. The taller teenager pointed to a bearded, barefoot guy with a lot of chest hair showing under his shirtless overalls. He was pricking blue balloons with what looked like a sharpened antler. Two more pops followed. A handful of unpricked balloons drifted skyward, and he lifted his arms as if giving them a sendoff blessing. Also revealing an impressive amount of armpit hair.

Most of the people who come to the mountain are peaceful. They’re into meditating and looking for spiritual connections and all that, the teenager added.

Or in the winter, people come for the skiing, the shorter girl said. But if there’s nobody important here, I’d better get home. Mom said dire things will happen if I don’t get my room cleaned up today. She wrinkled her nose at what she apparently considered an excessive concern for cleanliness. I felt a twinge of guilt. I’d ducked out on vacuuming myself.

The girls left. By now the protesters had organized themselves into two lines rotating in opposite directions. They chanted Let our mountain be as they snaked around the parking lot. Their protest didn’t appear to be getting any attention from the movie people or the wannabe extras. A sandwich-board sign by an open door read Register Here, and a line of people of various ages trailed down the sidewalk. A sound of high-pitched, mystical music, maybe Indian flutes, drifted out with them.

I’m going to go get registered, the woman said. Apparently becoming a movie extra rated higher than protesting, even if the protest had some moral value. Coming? she asked me. Or would you rather protest?

I’ll have to think about it, I said.

Actually, I didn’t have time to think about it. When I moved out of the way of a car pulling into the parking lot, I stumbled into the midst of the chanting protesters. Someone handed me a sign as I was swept along. I was on the far side of the parking lot before I managed to slither out of the line and hand my sign to someone else. Then I could see that it read a blunt STOP THE MOVIE!!

But once out of the line, I found myself smack-dab in the middle of another line. The Register Here line.

I expected to be chastised for unfairly breaking into the middle of the line, but no one even seemed to notice me. One of the advantages of being little-old-lady invisible. I looked for the drably dressed blonde in the line but didn’t see her. What I could see beyond the open door was a convention-type room with tables and chairs shoved off to one side and a central desk occupied by a man and woman. He was a poster guy for tall, dark, and handsome; she had red hair pinned into a messy topknot, with dark-framed glasses that added an intellectual look.

They appeared to be rejecting more applicants than they chose. The rejects were cursorily motioned out a side door, and the few chosen as extras were sent to one side to fill out some papers. The thin flute music played on. Would I make the cut if I stayed in line?

I was just past the doorway when the woman from the desk got up and started working her way down the line. Apparently she’d decided to speed up the process by weeding out obvious rejects ahead of time. When she reached me, I got a quick thumbs-down.

The abrupt rejection sparked my indignation. You don’t want me as an extra?

No. Her tone was brusque. Lemurians are tall people. You’re too short. She gave me another dismissive wave. Short person, begone, it said.

I looked up front at the select group of chosen ones, both men and woman. Yep, they were all tall and fit, no doubt capable of leaping tall mountains and wide rivers as easily as I’d step over a bug on the sidewalk.

But that’s not fair, I protested as I followed the woman with Casting Director printed across the back of her vest. "There must be some short Lemurians."

No. Lemurians are all tall. And they’re warriors, not—I think she started to say little old ladies but opted for a more politically correct—older people.

Warriors have little-old-lady mothers, I argued.

Lemurian mothers are tall. So are Lemurian grandmothers, she added as if to ward off any progressive argument. I thought she was about to add So are Lemurian dogs, cats, and hamsters. But she stopped short. Hey, who’s this?

This was Mac walking toward me. I’ve always thought of my husband as a good-looking, silver fox kind of guy. But right then I saw him through casting director eyes. Maybe not as tall as most of the chosen Lemurians, but tall enough. Also somewhat older than the chosen group, but trim and fit. Attractive trimmed beard and mustache, full head of silver-white hair, incredible blue eyes. Oh yeah, definitely Lemurian material.

The pickup is fixed? I asked him.

No. The transmission is dead. They’re getting a used one sent up from a wrecking yard in Redding tomorrow. Someone from the repair shop dropped me off here—

I think the casting director started to say something, but the big room suddenly lit up as if hit by a bolt of lightning. A huge boom blasted my ears, and a wave of pressure slammed me sideways. What happened? Instantly blinded, deafened, and disoriented, I lurched forward, hands flailing.

Chapter Two

IVY

Panic. Screams. Shrieks. Screeches. Chaos.

The automatic sprinkler system turned on. A very energetic system. I immediately felt as if I were caught in a car wash.

With my eyes squeezed shut, Mac half led, half shoved me off to a corner, sheltering me with his body and arms from the rumble of the mob trying to escape. Even with eyes shut I could still see the flash as if it were burned into my eyelids. My ears rang with the echo of the thunderous boom. The floor felt as if it vibrated under my feet.

Water drenched my head and trickled down my neck.

I blinked my eyes. Once. Twice. They felt scratchy, as if I’d looked too long at the sun. As if I were now looking through a halo of the sun itself at silhouettes of people running for the doorway, crashing into each other. Shoving, falling, figures piling up around the doorway like a living logjam. An acrid scent hung in air that seemed too thick to breathe.

More shrieks. More screams. That strange background of eerie flute music.

Like a movie made with a lens-cracked camera. Too much light, too many soundtracks.

You okay? Mac leaned down to speak into my ear.

I guess so. My eyes still burned, my ears still rang, and my body still vibrated with the thunder of movement from people trying to escape, but I didn’t feel the pain of any actual injury. Though I did feel quite wet. Are you?

My back was to the explosion or whatever it was. I didn’t get the full force of seeing it like you did.

The barrier of light blazing in my eyes thinned a little, and blurred silhouettes became 3D people. One woman fell to her knees. A larger figure toppled over her. Two figures collided and came out with fists swinging. A woman with a big purse clobbered one of the fighters. Someone crashed into an overturned chair and skidded it toward us. Mac kicked it away. I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the ringing in my ears, the flash lingering in my eyes, the confusion fogging my mind. The sprinkler system sprayed on.

Something exploded?

Mac’s protective arms tightened around me. I think so.

A dark message shot into my befuddled brain. What follows an explosion? Fire! I didn’t want to join the panic, but— We have to get out before we’re trapped in here! I tried to pull Mac toward the side door where a bit of blue sky showed above the people fighting to get out.

He held me back. No. Wait.

The head of the young guy who’d been sitting at the desk suddenly rose above the crowd as he jumped on the desk. Under the drench from the sprinkler system, his hair had flattened into a dark helmet. He waved his arms. Keep calm! The police are coming! Stay calm!

He didn’t sound particularly calm himself. Certainly no one else was calm. A battle broke out at the doorway. Someone grabbed one of the chairs and used it as a battering ram to charge the logjam.

The man on the desk abandoned his brief effort at calm. He leaped to the floor, shoved a woman out of his way, and barreled toward the side door. The casting director woman appeared from somewhere and grabbed the back of his shirt, yanking him to a halt. The flute music abruptly died and the sprinkler system shut off, but the noise of the shoving, screaming crowd roared louder.

The battle to get through both doorways continued, but still Mac held me back. I couldn’t understand why. We had to get out of here! He turned me toward the center of the room. Look.

I looked where he aimed me. I still seemed to have a barrier of glaring light between me and everything I tried to see, but I blinked, and then I saw something odd. I expected an enormous hole in the floor where the explosion had blasted through, but there was no hole. An incendiary scent hung in the air, but no flames.

What I could see after a few more blinks was a small green object, cylinder shaped, on the floor beyond the desk. Black smudges of scorched floor surrounded it. A haze of smoke drifted toward the ceiling, but still no flames.

What is it?

A siren wailed to a stop outside, then several more sirens, and a voice bellowed through a bullhorn.

Okay, everybody, clear the doorway! Police coming through!

The police came through. So did a handful of firemen dragging a hose. Inside, where we were still backed into a corner, the police presence screeched everything to a halt. The casting director was still holding her assistant by the back of his shirt. A big-bellied man yelled something about his rights. The tall, drably dressed woman I’d talked to outside had her arms locked across her midsection. Had she been hit? The fireman at the front of the hose looked ready to spray something or someone but wasn’t sure what or who.

The casting director now climbed up on the desk and waved her arms for attention. She yelled an obvious fact. Okay, everybody, registration is over for today. If you’ve been injured and need medical attention, an EMT from the ambulance out front will help you. Everybody else go home now. If you weren’t rejected today, you can come back tomorrow to apply. Not before nine a.m.

The side door was closed now, a police officer standing with arms crossed in front of it. We, along with everyone else, headed for the main exit. The firehose still snaked through the doorway, and we had to step over it. The exit was orderly now, but no one could just walk out. Two officers stationed at the door questioned everyone passing through, writing down names, addresses, phone numbers. They asked if we’d seen anything that happened just before or after the explosion. We hadn’t. They appeared to be detaining a few people but they let us go.

Outside, several people crowded around the ambulance, but no one looked seriously injured. Officers had herded the protesters into a cluster near the fountain. Their signs lay scattered around the parking lot. Police surrounded the guy who’d been pricking balloons, but he lifted a raised fist and shouted at them defiantly. This movie must stop!

Maybe he set off the explosion, I said.

Did you see him inside? Mac asked.

I didn’t see anything. I was just talking to you, and the casting director was standing there, and then it happened. Whatever it was.

We hurried on by and back to our motorhome. Mac kept a protective arm around me all the way.

**

Back home, BoBandy greeted us as enthusiastically as he always does, as if we’d been gone for days instead of minutes. Koop looked up from his usual position by the front window. He’s a little more reserved with his welcomes. My vision was okay, and the ringing in my ears had stopped, but I still felt off-balance, as if the world had taken an unexpected tilt. We dried ourselves off, dressed in dry clothing, and talked about what had happened, but we didn’t come to any conclusions.

In the afternoon, Mac walked back to the repair shop to see if the transmission