by Jeff Strand
Rachel took a binder off her desk and handed it to me. I opened to the first script and quickly flipped through the ten pages. Linda was really on to something when she said they weren’t practicing their Academy Awards speeches yet.
Sample dialogue:
MOTHER :Stay away! Stay away, you beast! Stay away!
PSYCHOPATH :Never! You will die, as did my own mother, and as will all the mothers of the world when I’m done!
MOTHER :But…but…it’s Father’s Day!
While I was perusing the script, Carl walked into the room and asked Rachel something very technical about a new tripod. She answered back with something equally technical and budget-related. Carl tried to explain in very technical terms why the budget-related answer wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but Rachel quickly forced him to accept it, and he returned to the back room.
As I set the script back down, I noticed something resting on Rachel’s desk that gave my heart a sudden jolt.A deck of cards.Prophecies of the Night.
“Oh, hey, Prophecies of the Night,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “Do you play?”
Rachel rolled her eyes. “Oh, God, Carl is always trying to foist that stupid game on us. He plays it once a week with his friends. He got everyone a deck for Christmas, and we all get a new deck on our birthday. I went with him once just to shut him up, but the game makes no sense.”
“It is a bit confusing,” I agreed, to keep her from giving me a pop quiz on the rules. “Is Carl the only one who plays regularly?”
“No, actually, I think Farley goes with him quite a bit, and Dominick and Linda will go occasionally just to mooch free chips and soda. I remember Mike saying something about shoving a fireplace poker through Carl’s left nostril if he didn’t shut up about that stupid game, so I don’t think he’s a regular.”
“Do you know where they play? I’ve been looking for a player’s group for a while, but I’ve never been able to find one.”
“They play in the basement ofBalder’s Dash on Thursdays. As far as I know they’re on for tonight, though you might want to ask Carl to make sure.”
What a happy coincidence! I’d looked seven-to-one odds in the face and come out victorious!
“I don’t think I’ll be able to make it tonight,” I lied, “but I might mention it to him some other time. So here’re a couple of questions. First, could we possibly tag along when you’re filming one of these things? And, second, is there some time we could meet, just us, to talk outside of work?”
“I hope you’re not asking me out,” she said. “I’m flattered, but I can very clearly see that little ball and chain around your ring finger.”
“No, no, it’s strictly professional. You look pretty strong, but my wife has access to a drawer full of kitchen knives and knows where I sleep. No, it’s that whole human interest deal…what do the people who work at Ghoulish Delights do in their spare time?”
Roger walked into the waiting room with Linda, his throat intact again. “He’s all yours,” Linda told me with a wide grin.
“Thanks,” I said. “Looking snazzy,Rog .”
“I agree. Your throat has never looked better,” Rachel commented. To me, she said “How about we meet tomorrow atVon’s Gym, 6 A.M.?”
“Um, I’ve heard rumors that such an hour of the morning exists, but so far it’s unconfirmed.”
“Great, six o’clock then. I assume you don’t have a membership, so you’ll need to tell the guy at the front desk that you’re there to see me. And as for tagging along with us, we have an appointment tomorrow at noon, and if you show up here around eleven we’ll be more than happy to have you.”
We thanked her and left the house. “Why do you think she assumed I don’t have a gym membership?” I asked Roger as I shut the door behind me.
“I guess she missed all those muscles bursting through your shirt,” he replied.“A common problem, to be honest.”
“Shut up.”
“You asked, I told. Hey, what’s that on your car?”
There was indeed something on the hood of my car, a bright red box, about one foot square, covered with yellow stars. When we reached the car and saw it up close, it was revealed to be a jack-in-the-box.
“Okay, so what the hell is this all about?” Roger asked.
It was a perfectly innocent-looking jack-in-the-box, but I wasn’t sure we were going to like the answer.
Chapter 8
“IT’S NO BIG deal,” I said, trying to sound casual.“Just a jack-in-the-box. Turn the crank, hear a catchy tune,see a clown pop up, squeal with delight.”
“Uh-huh. So why is it sitting here on your car?”
“That I can’t answer.”
“You think the killer put it here, as a warning?”
“How should I know? I don’t even think anyone inthereis the killer! One of them, or all of them, probably just stuck it out here as a prank. We’ll turn the handle and see a clown with an axe in his head or something.”
“Or it could explode and kill us both,” Roger pointed out.
“Now you’re getting a little paranoid. Do you think the killer just happened to have a booby-trapped jack-in-the-box sitting around in case we showed up?”
“I don’t know, but I certainly welcome you to turn the handle and see what happens. I’ll be way the hell over there behind that tree.”
“Okay, look, this is stupid. I’ll pick it up, march right back in there, and demand to know who put it out here.”
“It could have been any of them,” said Roger. “Rachel could’ve done it while I was in the back being tortured, and anyone else could’ve done it while we were in the waiting room.”
“If there’s a back door, yeah.Farley could have snuck out unnoticed when Carl came out to gripe about his tripod. Were Dominick and Linda with you the whole time?”
Roger shook his head. “Dominick wasn’t with me at all. And Linda was kind enough to give me some privacy while I took a leak. But if we go in there and raise hell over a jack-in-the-box, we’re going to look really stupid.”
“I never intended to raise hell,” I said. “We’d just walk back inside and ask who left it. No big deal.”
“I say we knock the stupid thing off your car with a stick and then get out of here,” Roger suggested. “If the killer did leave it, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to let himself be seen going outside with it, and if we ask too many questions about it we’re going to blow the whole reporter setup.”
“You’re right,” I agreed. “But I don’t think we should throw it away. It could be an important clue.”
“Well, sure, when knives shoot through the sides at us, that’ll be an importantclue leading us to conclude that it was a trap!”
“Roger, it’s a jack-in-the-box! A toy! Nobody knew we were coming! Who the hell keeps explosive knife-shooting jack-in-the-boxes around?”
“Who the hell buries people alive?”
“Okay, look,” I said calmly. “It’s there for a reason. If our friend wanted us dead, he would have stabbed us to death right after he murdered Jennifer. He would not leave a trap on our car. It’s impractical. And unless everyone in Ghoulish Delights is in on it, having us die right outside of the house would immediately get him questioned by the police!”
“Everyonecouldbe in on it,” said Roger. “They were all pretty scary. That Farley lunatic enjoys his work a little too much, if you ask me.”
“Now you’re just being ridiculous,” I said. “At the very least we need to quit standing around debating this and get out of sight in case somebody comes out to ask us what we’re doing. Get in the car. I’ll grab the box.”
“You’re actually going to touch it?”
“Yes.”
“Idiot.”
“Oh, shut up.” I reached for the box…but then hesitated at the last moment. Damn that Roger. Now I was scared to touch a children’s toy. The stupid thing couldn’t be a trap. There were so many better ways to get rid of us.
“Gee, Andrew, why a
re you pausing?”
“I told you to get in the car and shut up.” I took a deep breath, and slowly extended my index finger toward the box. I made contact, and then pulled back as if I’d just touched a hot stove.
“Something wrong?” asked Roger.
“No, you’ve got me all freaked out.” I forced myself to pick up the jack-in-the-box with both hands, revealing a small piece of paper underneath. Written in blood-red letters were the words “Badgraverobbers !”
This was not good.
I tucked the jack-in-the-box under my arm, picked up the note, and then got in the car. I handed the note to Roger as I set the box in the back seat.
“Oh, piss,” said Roger.
“Yep.So, either the killer followed us here, or it’s somebody inside.”
“Or somebody else could know.”
“Right, that too.” I started the engine. “We need to find out what’s in this box.”
“Screw that. I say we take it to the police, let them check it out.”
“Roger, are you using your brain on a time-share program?” I asked as I backed out onto the road. “Did you forget that the whole reasonwehaven’t gone to the police is that we got into this mess by agreeing to dig up a corpse in the boondocks?”
“We could make something up,” said Roger. “Jennifer’s dead, it’s not like she’sgonna contradict us.”
I shook my head. “Even if we could come up with a convincing story that answers all the questions they’d throw at us, we don’t have anything to give them but a jack-in-the-box. And we don’t know what it means yet.”
“So what do you suggest we do?”
“Find out what it means.”
“I don’t know, Andrew, this kind of reminds me of a really nutty decision made by some guys I used to know. They agreed to dig up a coffin for twenty thousand dollars. Where are we going, anyway?”
“ToMerriamLake ,” I replied. “I might be able to ease your worries.”
“I CAN’T BELIEVE we’re doing this,” said Roger.
I couldn’t quite believe it myself. We were parked at the edge ofMerriamLake , standing outside watching the water. The jack-in-the-box had been submerged for the past fifteen minutes. If Roger was so worried that it was going to blow up, I figured we’d dunk it for a while.
I don’t know anything about bombs, so I had no idea if this would even do any good. And in fact, I was more inclined to believe that it was really, really dumb. But if it were something low-budget and gunpowder-based, soaking it might work. So that’s what I was doing.
Finally I waded out and retrieved the jack-in-the-box. I brought it back to shore and set it down on the grass. “Are you happy now?” I asked.
“No. That couldn’t possibly have been enough time to rust any knives in there.”
“There aren’t any goddamn knives! Do you see any place a knife could come through?” I tapped on the side of the tin box, causing Roger to flinch. “See?Solid. No knives. I’m just going to turn the crank and see what’s inside. If you’re going to keep being a big baby, you can go hide somewhere and I’ll tell you what happened later.”
I could tell that the idea was appealing to him, but to his credit Roger stayed where he was. “Okay, I’ll watch you turn the crank. Just keep your head away from that top part.”
“I was going to.” I knelt down beside the box and firmly gripped the handle. I took a deep breath, braced myself, and then let go of the handle. “All right, I don’t see any harm in pushing a big mud pile around three of thesides, to sort of block anything that might shoot out, do you?”
Roger agreed that he saw nothing wrong with the idea, so we scooped up some mud from the shore and built a protective barrier around the jack-in-the-box, covering everything but the lid and the handle. That finished, Roger returned to his position of relative safety next to the car and I gripped the handle once more.
I turned the crank. “Pop Goes the Weasel!” began to play. It occurred to me that I didn’t know any of the lyrics to this song besides the “Pop Goes the Weasel!” part. I’m sure my brain chose to share that information with me just to distract me from the fact that I was excessively nervous.
Dah-dah,dah-dah ,dah-dah-dah-dah-dah ,dah-dah ,dah-dah ,dah -DAH,dah ,dah-dah ,dah-dah ,dah-dah-dah-dah-dah …
I stopped turning right before the weasel went pop.
“Is it broken?” asked Roger.
“No, it’s not broken. Leave me alone.”
“I’d understand if you want to forget the whole thing.”
“Don’t talk���you’re distracting me.”
“From turning the handle?”
“Shut up or I’m yanking this thing right out of the mud and coming after you with it.”
“Maybe we should soak it another fifteen minutes.”
“No! Just be quiet! I’m going to turn it!” I continued holding the handle, but eased myself as far away from the box as I could and still reach.
Then I turned.
DAH!
Dah-dah-DAH-dah.Dah-dah,dah-dah ….
The lousy weasel didn’t even know when to pop. I continued turning the handle, and it went through the second verse of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” the one that reportedly caused the songwriters to break up over creative differences.
This time, I didn’t hesitate at the pop, and the lid sprung open. A cute little clown burst out, bobbing to and fro on his little spring. Taped to one of the clown’s hands was a small wet envelope. I tore it off.
“Are yougonna cover that thing with mud, just in case?” Roger asked.
“No, I’m not going to…okay,I’ll cover it up to make you feel better.” With my foot, I moved a huge glob of mud over the top of the jack-in-the-box. Then, worrying that some kids might come playing aroundhere, I pulled the box out of the mud and heaved it as far into the lake as I could. Nothing blew up and no dead fish rose to the surface, so I figured everything was cool.
I opened the envelope and removed the folded piece of paper inside. Roger apparently decided there was nothing to fear from it and walked over to join me.
On the paper, in the same blood-red letters was written: “If you want to see Jennifer again, be at theEverlifeCemetery at midnight.”
“Oh,nowthat’s interesting,” said Roger.
“That’s impossible,” I protested. “I heard���”
I stopped. I’donlyheard her die. It certainly wouldn’t be difficult to fake a death that I never got to see.
But why?Why would somebody kidnap Roger, threaten to use him as a hostage but let him go, then fake Jennifer’s death, only to use her as a hostage…or something like that?
This whole situation was becoming slightly quaint.
WE WERE both completely baffled, and so I made the decision for Roger to engage in some real detective work.Meaning that I told him to hide in the woods around the graveyard to see if he could learn the identity of the killer. For some odd reason he was not all that keen on this idea, but using my expert skills at encouraging others to obey my will (“Quit your whining and just do it, for God’s sake!”), I managed to convince him. I dropped him off at his apartment with instructions to buy some more bullets for Michael’s gun, drive to the cemetery, hide well, and not try to apprehend the killer himself. Not that he ever would.
I drove home to spend some quality minutes with my family before heading out again. Nobody was there, but I saw the light blinking on the answering machine. This pleased me, because Helen had insisted that the new message I’d recorded would cause people to decide they didn’t really want us to return their call:
“Hi, you’ve reached the residence of Andrew, Helen, Theresa, and Kyle Mayhem. Because we’ve lost a number of close friends lately in telephone-related accidents, we’re unable to bring ourselves to answer your call at this time. But if you leave your name and number at the tone, we’ll get back to you as soon as therapy cures the problem.”
I pressed the button, listened to the message, and immediately got back
in my car and drove to the hospital.
Chapter 9
I’M NOT right very often, but my constant warning of “If you kids don’t pick those toys up off the stairs, somebody’s going to trip and break their neck!” turned out to be almost true, except that Helen broke her right leg instead.
She was not in a particularly good mood by the time I got there. She was also not all that coherent due to the gobs of medication they’d given her, but I was able to ascertain from her ranting that Kyle’s Eye-in-an-Egg had been the culprit.
“I told you not to buy it for him,” she snarled. “Didn’t I tell you not to buy it for him? Didn’t I? We were right there in the store and I said not to buy it, and you went ahead and bought it anyway, you son of a bitch!”
“Yeah, but you said it was stupid, not a health risk,” I said, lacking the intelligence not to argue with a drugged-up, pissed-off, pain-filled woman.
“I don’t care. I’ve always hated that Eye-in-an-Egg, and now because of it, I get to spend the next few days in the hospital! Like I don’t spend enough time here anyway! I don’tseeyou doing all these hours of overtime! Did you get me flowers?”
“Not yet, but I will right away.”
“Forget it. I’m going to sleep. Go away.”
“I’ll make sure that the Eye gets destroyed.”
“See that you do.”
I left the room and collected my children from our surly-looking neighbor. They were both pretty shaken-up, but I assured them that Mommy was going to be all right and cheered them up by promising them rides on her wheelchair. I made some phone calls, trying to find a place for the kids to stay the night, but nobody was available. I’d try again later.
By the time we ate a fast food dinner and got home, it was nearly seven. I wanted to go check on Roger, but I didn’t want to risk blowing his cover, or listen to him gripe. Since I really didn’t have much time before I wanted to be atBalder’s Dash, I decided to simply lie on the couch and try to think things through.
Theresa and Kyle popped in the animatedvideoZany the ChipperChipmunk . This video always brought out deep feelings of guilt because I wanted so badly to see Zany die. It didn’t have to be a gruesome death, just a painful one.
