by Jeff Strand
“I have no idea,” I admitted.
“What kind of condom was it?”
“Trojan, I think.Trojan after the creation of the mail.Mail after the creation of the Trojan.” I shrugged.“Doesn’t help.”
Or did it? What did the Trojans create? I only remembered about .007% of what I’d learned in history class, but I did recall the story of the Trojan horse.
“Something after the horse?“I said aloud. “Can you think of anyplace a horse might be important?”
Rachel thought for a moment. “Not off the top of my head, not here in Chamber.”
“Wouldn’t letters be more appropriate than mail?” inquiredTracy , massaging her ankles.
“Letters after the horse,” I said. “Specifically, five letters after the horse. The fifth letter would be `E.‘What could that mean?” Nothing sprung to mind. “Or maybe it’s like one of those codes we used to do in grade school, where B means A, and C means B, and so on. That would make it…I, J, K, L, M for the first letter, giving us Morse, and then���”
I stopped as I had a sudden realization. That’s why the skull’s movement seemed so weird! “The skull is speaking in Morse code!”
“Are you sure?” asked Rachel.
“That has to be it! That’s the answer!” My heart was pounding so quickly I thought it was ready to break out of my chest and onto the dirty floor. “I have to go somewhere I can look at the tape!”
“Go, then!” said Rachel, lifting the axe to break through the last of the man’s locks. “I’ll get everyone out of here and take them to the police.”
“No, you can’t do that yet,” I said. Rachel smashed through the padlock and began to help the man out of his cage. “Take them somewhere safe, hidden away. Put them in your car and just drive out of Chamber, get as far away as you can. Give me until midnight to take care of everything,then go to the police.”
Rachel nodded as she turned to the former prisoners. “Any objections to giving our friend a chance to get his kids back?”
They all shook their heads.
“Then get out of here,” Rachel told me. “I’ll see you later.”
MY JUBILATION at solving the riddle was tainted by a sick feeling that things were going to get a whole lot uglier before they got better.Because really, the killer had just handed the prisoners over to us. No challenge.Which meant that he had something much worse in store.
There was no way in hell I was going to speed after the results of my last little traffic violation, so I kept to the posted limit until I saw both of what I needed in a strip mall to my right.Pages-A-Plenty and Chamber Video World.
I hurried into the small bookstore and pushed past a young woman who was at the front counter with a stack of self-help books. “Sorry,” I said to the cashier, “but this is life or death. I need a book on Morse code.”
The cashier was a tall gentleman with wire framed glasses and hair that was gray at the temples. “I believe that you should wait your turn.”
“Listen to me,” I said, leaning forward. “Direct me to a book on Morse code or your potential customers are going to be frightened away by me doing a naked limbo in your front window.”
“Books on Amateur Radio should be in the hobby section, back wall, middle shelf,” said the cashier, quickly.
“Thanks. By the way, could I borrow a pen?”
The cashier handed me a pen. “Keep it.”
I hurried to the back shelf and searched for a moment until IlocatedAmateur Radio MadeEasy . I flipped through the pages and found one that listed all of the letters and their Morse code dot-dash equivalents. I didn’t have any money and I figured that stealing a book wasn’t the best course of action to take when police involvement is considered bad, so I scribbled the code down on my arm and left the store.
I proceeded to the movie rental place. A monitor above the checkout counter was playing thatstupidZany the Chipper Chipmunk video. There were only a couple of customers wandering the aisles (no doubt due to Zany’s evil presence) and a teenage girl behind the counter.
“Hi,” I said to her, setting the Ghoulish Delights tape on the counter. “I’m a private investigator for the state, and I need to commandeer your VCR.”
“Huh?” replied the girl.
“I need you to play this tape for me.”
“I can’t do that. The manager tells us what movies to play.”
“Is the manager around now?”
The girl shook her head.
“Then let’s not worry about him. Play this. Actually, let me play it…I’m going to need to do a lot of rewinding.” I stepped behind the counter and ejected Zany from the VCR.
“Sir, customers aren’t allowed behind the counter,” the girl insisted.
“I’m not a customer. I have no intention of renting anything.” I inserted the Ghoulish Delights tape into the VCR and pressed play. “Can you mute the volume?” I asked. “I don’t want the voices to distract me.”
The girl nodded, picked up another remote, and shut off the sound. As the talking skulls came on, I focused all of my attention on Boo-Boo. Yes, his mouth was definitely moving in a series of long and short beats, with pauses that hopefully signaled a space between letters.
I rewound to the beginning of Boo-Boo’s dialogue, and wrote down what I saw.
Quick bite, quick bite, pause, quick bite, slow bite, pause…
I lost the flow, rewound, and started again, confirming what I’d written and then picking up where I’d left off.
Slow bite, pause, quick bite, quick bite, quick bite, quick bite, pause, quick bite…
Dash, dash, pause, dot, dot, pause, dash, dash, dot…
“What movie is that?” asked one of the customers. “My son would probably enjoy that kind of garbage.”
I ignored him. It took more than ten rewinds to get the entire message, but soon I had everything written down on my arm. Comparing my left arm to my right, I began to translate the message.
I AM THE MIGHTY HUNTER. COME AND GET ME.
It was Mr. Dead Fish Cologne himself. Dominick!
“OH, HI Andrew, how’s the search go���HEY!!!”
Linda cried out as I wrapped my arm around her neck and pressed the edge of the K-Mart kitchen knife against her throat. I pushed my way into the living room of the apartment and kicked the door shut behind me. “Is Dominick home?” I asked in a whisper.
“Yes.”
“Call him out here.”
“Dominick, honey, Andrew’s here to see you!”
Dominick stepped into the room, a half-eaten Pop-Tart in one hand.“Oh, hi, Andy. Welcome to my humble home. Do you want the tour before or after you decapitate my girlfriend?”
“Where the hell are my kids?” I demanded.
Dominick shrugged. “I’m not sure. Probably the same place I stashed Michael.” He grinned and took another bite of his Pop-Tart. “By the way, Linda, if Andrew doesn’t end up killing you, pleaseremember to get the frosted kind next time.”
“I’ll try, sweetheart,” Linda said.
“Tell me where my kids are or I’ll cut her!” I threatened. “I mean it! This isn’t a joke!”
“Oh, that’s right, I’m supposed to be taking this all very seriously,” said Dominick. “Please forgiveme, I have a tendency to behave inappropriately in certain social situations. So, let me get this straight, you want me to return your kids to you in exchange for Linda’s life, correct?”
“That’s the idea.”
“And what makes you think I care if Linda lives or dies? Sure, she has some really cute dimples and a fantastic ass, but her personality is just loaded with defects.”
I removed the knife from Linda’s throat, and then poked the tip into the side of her neck. She cried out in pain as blood welled from the tiny wound.
“Hey, what the hell are you doing?” shouted Dominick, his eyes wide.
“I’m not kidding around here! Give me back my kids!”
Then I let out my own cry of pain as Linda
stomped on my toes with her heel. It didn’t hurt enough to make me drop my knife, but her next move, jabbing her elbow into my gut, was enough to double me over.Great. I’d seen a dozen movies where the woman escaped her captor by stomping hisfoot, and now it happened to me in real life.Real smooth.
I stood back up and grabbed her hair. Though she didn’t have long, flowing tresses, I was able to get a good handful and yank her toward me. This time I pressed the knife against the back of her neck, and she froze.
Dominick was gone.
“Get out here!” I shouted. “I swear to God, Dominick, you don’t want to mess with somebody as screwed up as I am right now!”
Dominick stepped back into the living room, now holding a crossbow pointed in my direction. I had Linda in front of me as a shield, but she didn’t cover me completely. Hopefully his aim wasn’t perfect.
“Drop the crossbow or I’ll stab her,” I said.
“You stab her and you get an arrow through the face,” Dominick said. “Then your kids will die.”
“Where are they?” I demanded.
“I don’t know. I didn’t touch them.”
“Bullshit, oh mighty hunter.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. All I know is that this was supposed to be a joke.”
“It’s no joke,” I said. “My children have been kidnapped.”
“By who?”
“Well, obviously I thought it was by you! Who told you this was a joke?”
“I was talking to Carl this morning. He said that you weren’t a detective, you were somebody Michael hired as a practical joke and that we were supposed to play along.”
“I think it’s a pretty big understatement to say that you were severely misinformed.”
“I consider myself informed now. Why don’t you let her go so we can talk this over?”
I shook my head. “You put down the crossbow first.”
Dominick bent down at the knees and carefully set the crossbow down on the floor. He stood up and held up his hands to show that they were empty.
“Kick it over here,” I said.
Dominick hesitated. “This bow was really expensive.”
“Now!”
He kicked the bow. It slid across the floor, coming to a stop about two feet from me. I removed the knife from Linda’s neck and she hurried over to Dominick. “Asshole!” she said, slapping him across the chest. “Don’tyouever worry about how much your precious bow is worth when some maniac is attacking me with aknife! “
I wondered if this was the way I was going to solve the mystery, by threatening each of the potential suspects with sharp objects until one of them turned out to be the killer.
“So what brings you here?” asked Dominick.
“Some psycho has me running all over the place playing his game,” I said. “The final clue was I AM THE MIGHTY HUNTER. That would be you, right?”
“Well, no, not really, I just fish,” Dominick explained. “I have a huge weapon collection, but it’s not used for hunting. I swear,I have nothing to do with whatever it is you’re involved in.” He turned to Linda. “Do you have any idea what he’s talking about?”
“The son of a bitch is crazy,” said Linda. “He probably murdered his kids himself.”
“I’m not crazy!” I shouted, furious. I took a deep breath to calm myself down. “Okay, maybe I am a little, but I’m not lying about this.If Dominick isn’t the mighty hunter, who is?”
Linda avoided my gaze.
Then a possibility occurred to me.The game���Prophecies of the Night.
“In Prophecies of the Night, is one of the character types a hunter?” I asked.
Dominick shrugged and glanced at Linda. “I’m not sure,” she said. “There are so many I’d think there would have to be.”
I tried to remember what I’d heard from the game. I stood there, concentrating, trying to recall any piece of conversation that indicated who might play a hunter.
A flash of dialogue ran through my mind.
“…I’ll add his head to my trophy case…”
“It’s Farley!” I exclaimed. “The mighty hunter is Farley! He has my kids!”
I turned and started to bolt for the door. “Hold on, wait a second!” said Dominick. “Should we call the police?”
“No police! That’s the recurring theme of Farley’s threats! I have to go after him myself!”
“Okay, we don’t need to involve the cops, but I’ll come with you!”
“You’re not going anywhere!” Linda protested. “The guy is insane, can’t you tell?”
Dominick shook his head. “There’s always been something about Farley thatcreeped me out. I have no problem at all believing that he’s a kidnapper.”
“And a murderer,” I said. “He buried Michael alive and chopped up Jennifer.”
“Jennifer’s dead?” Dominick took a few seconds to digest that information then continued. “Okay, if what you say about Farley is true, then you can’t just confront him with a kitchen knife. But you may also be completely wrong, so I’m not sending you after him without supervision. I mean, you could’ve really hurt Linda and she had nothing to do with this.”
“I don’t need supervision,” I said.
“I think you do. And if you take me along, I can arm you to the teeth. I’ve got an incredible collection of weapons in the other room, not all of them legal, if you get my drift.”
“Well then, why don’t you tag along?” I suggested.
“Good idea. Let’s go getsomestuff.”
Chapter 22
THERE WERE no cars in the driveway as we pulled up alongside Farley’s home. It was a fairly nice place, if a bit small. Personally, I would’ve figured Farley to be the kind of guy who still lived with his parents.
The three of us got out of Helen’s car. I’d told them the whole story on the way, to make sure they understood just how dangerous things could be. Linda had refused to let Dominick go without her, and all three of us were wielding crossbows. I also had a belt from which dangled two vicious-looking knives, and a quiver containing a combination of about twenty arrows and bolts, everything from one with an explosive tip to a razor-lined one that I was supposed to handle very, very carefully.
After we each placed a bolt into our crossbows and pulled them back, locked into place and ready to fire, we walked up to the front door and I knocked. “Farley, it’s me,” I called out.
No answer.
“I know that you’re the mighty hunter,” I said. “Open the door and let’s talk.”
Still nothing.I tested the doorknob and found it unlocked. “You guys ready?” I asked.
Dominick nodded. Linda shook her head.
I turned the knob and pushed the door open. “Come on out, Farley!” I shouted into the darkness. I reached inside and flipped on the light switch. The living room looked a lot like the Ghoulish Delights office���a shrine to horror movies. The walls were covered with posters, and all sorts of masks, models, creatures, and other assorted morbid props were carefully placed for maximum gruesome impact.
More interesting were the six or seven cables that stretched across the room just inches below the ceiling, one end of each fastened to the wall at our right, the other end disappearing into a hallway.
“Theresa?” I called out. “Kyle? Can you hear me?”
No response, not that I expected one.
Then I saw Boo-Boo. The skull was at the far end of the room, resting on top of a television set, an envelope in his mouth.
“I need to get that envelope,” I said, pointing. “You two stay put. Cover me.”
Dominick and Linda raised their crossbows in a position to best shoot any assailant. I moved my own slowly, from side to side, and then began to move forward. The first cable was only a couple of feet away.
Three steps later there was a loud squeaking sound, and then suddenly a corpse burst out of the hallway, hanging from a pulley attached to the cable. At least a dozen blades protruded from
the body, and I barely jumped back in time to avoid being sliced.The corpse slammed against the wall and dangled there, bouncing and swaying like a flesh-and-blood puppet.
It was a man, and he’d been completely dismembered. The pieces were now held together with wire, with inch-long gaps in between each chunk. Except for the head,which hung a good six inches above the rest of the body.
I turned around. Dominick and Linda both looked ready to keel over, but neither of them screamed.
“I won’t be offended if you want to wait in the car.”
“Just get the fucking envelope!” Dominick snapped.
From this angle, I still couldn’t see into the hallway. The toes of the corpse dangled about a foot above the floor, so it would be too dangerous to try to crawl over to the envelope if another body shot out. I took another step forward, then another, and then leapt back as I heard a second series of squeaks.
Another corpse burst out of the hallway. This time dodging was unnecessary, because the wire snapped and the body dropped in a heap on the floor. Only the head, adorned with several fishhooks, slammed against the wall.
Okay, I was wasting time. I braced myself, and then ran at top speed across the room. Out of the corner of my eye I saw four corpses shoot out of the hallway, one after the other. I reached Boo-Boo and snatched the envelope out of his mouth as the corpses bashed into the wall.
I looked at them. All had various weapons protruding from them, from a long spear to a non-running chainsaw. Two of the corpses hadn’t been reconstructed properly, their body parts switched around in some appalling mix-and-match game.
“Welcome to the mind of Farley,” I said. Dominick and Linda had nothing to say to that.
I opened the envelope, which was labeled “For Andrew” and read the note inside.
“Congratulations, Andrew! You’ve done great! Okay, I can’t say that for sure���it may have taken you too long to find this, and I may have slaughtered your kiddies out of boredom. But for now let’s pretend I haven’t. It’s time for the moment you’ve been waiting for.The final showdown.The big explanation. Fun, fun, fun for the whole family! Can you handle this much excitement??? Follow the enclosed map and see what happens! As usual,do it alone or I’ll kill your kids,yaddayaddayadda . This time I mean it. Your verybestest friend in the whole wide world, Farley.”
