Jack-in-the-Box

by William W. Johnstone

  The full impact of it all struck Phillip. “I’m going to die, is that it?”

  “Yes,” the priest said softly. “I am afraid that is the bottom line. What is your decision?”

  “I’ll call Sam.”

  “Jesus, Phillip!” Sam mumbled. “What time is it?”

  “Very early, or very late. Depending on your point of view.” He told Sam what was taking place.

  Sam came wide awake. And scared. “Are you serious? ”

  “Yes. Sam, if . . . anything happens to me—and it probably will—keep Weaver on the case. No matter what, keep him on it and paid.”

  “Sure, Phillip. Buddy, you sound as though you don’t think . . . I mean . . .”

  “I know what you mean. Don’t come out here, Sam. Don’t do it. See you, buddy.” He hung up.

  Phillip stood for a moment, collecting his thoughts, getting a firmer grip on his emotions, preparing himself for . . .

  Death.

  Phillip looked in on Jeanne. She was asleep. He went back to the guest room and looked in at Nora. She was wide awake and glaring hate at him.

  And Phillip knew then that he had lost the battle.

  “I don’t know whether you’re worth it,” he told his daughter.

  “You’re a damn fool,” she replied.

  Nora was sitting up in the bed, the strips of sheets and leather belts torn loose, scattered about the room.

  Suddenly the room turned very hot.

  Phillip could hear Debeau’s voice out in the hall. He understood the words. They were the last rites.

  For Phillip.

  “Well now, daddy,” Nora said, in that hollow, evil man’s voice. “Now what do you think you’re going to do?”

  Part Two

  16

  Fly down, Death; Call me:

  I have become a lost name.

  —Rukeyser

  “. . . and he made me take off all my clothes, mother,” Nora’s voice drifted to Phillip. “He hit me, two or three times. He . . . did things to me, mother. I have never been so humiliated in all my life.”

  “Poor baby,” Jeanne’s voice came to him. “I am so sorry.”

  Phillip sat up. Where was he? Jesus, his head ached. He tried to get to his feet. His legs wouldn’t work. His eyes wouldn’t focus. He thought he was in the hall.

  “Daddy said such ugly, ugly things to me, mother,” Nora said. “I will never forgive him for that, and for the way he touched me. He’s crazy, mother. He’s a crazy man. Look at my face where he hit me.”

  “I know, baby,” Jeanne said. “And I’m so sorry.”

  Phillip managed to get his eyes to focus. The first thing he saw was a quart bottle of Scotch about a foot away from him. The bottle was empty. Good to the last drop, he thought.

  I guess.

  Something was nagging at his mind, but he couldn’t bring it to the fore. Something about danger.

  “Dad sure knocked the hell out of me,” Phil said, his words reaching Phillip. “Nora, I don’t know what brought all this on, but I’m on your side. We’d all better stick together in this.”

  With a groan, Phillip sat up. He looked around for Father Debeau. The priest was gone. He looked out a window at the end of the hallway. The sky was gray and sullen-looking. Even without the sun, Phillip could tell it was past noon.

  He rose unsteadily to his feet and stood for a moment, swaying. He could not remember drinking the whiskey, he could not remember anything after going into the bedroom and seeing Nora free from her bonds.

  He was blank from that moment on. He couldn’t remember what it was. He remembered Debeau praying as he and Nora talked. But praying about what?

  “You perverted beast!” Jeanne’s sharp voice turned him around.

  “What’s happened to me?” Phillip asked, his words slurred. Christ! He was still drunk. “Where is Father Debeau?”

  “Who?” Jeanne asked.

  “Oh, come on, Jeanne. The priest. Father Joseph Debeau.”

  “I never heard of any priest named Debeau. Good God, Phillip, you’re disgusting. You’re still drunk.”

  “You’re right about that. The question is: How did I get this way, and why?”

  She shook her head. “You’re a pitiful excuse for a man and a worse excuse for a father. How dare you strike Nora! How dare you do those things to your own daughter?”

  “You mean the exorcism?”

  “The what?”

  Phillip blinked his eyes and shook his head, trying in vain to make some sense out of what was happening. If he could just remember. “Don’t you remember what happened to Else, Jeanne?”

  “Well, of course I remember what happened to her. She quit!” Jeanne shouted. “After you cursed her while we were at church. I have her note.”

  “Quit?” Now Phillip was totally confused. “What day is this?”

  “It’s Monday afternoon. You’ve been drunk and abusive for twenty-four hours.”

  Her cursing him brought him closer to sobriety and filled him with anger. “Now look, Jeanne, I did what I thought was right and best for Nora. You have no right to curse me.”

  She stared at him. “Right and best?” she asked, incredulous. “You really have gone off the deep end. You need help, Phillip. Professional help. Can’t you see that?”

  That triggered a memory recall in Phillip’s brain. Dr. Harte. Must call Sheela. “What was all that junk Nora was just telling you, Jeanne?”

  She stared at him for what Phillip thought must be the longest moment of his life. “Junk,” she said softly. “You really don’t remember anything at all, do you?”

  “Well, I remember the exorcism. I remember Father Debeau. I remember Sister Else . . .”

  “Exorcism? Sister Else?” Fear touched her eyes. “Phillip, I don’t know and have never heard of anyone named Debeau or Sister Else. No one by that name or order has ever been in this house, not while I was present. Let me call Dr. Spalding and make an appointment for you. You need a rest; you need professional help.”

  “Me see the doctor?” He laughed grimly. “Jeanne, don’t you remember the three of us talking in the den? You, me, and Father Debeau?”

  She backed away from him. He could tell she was very nervous, and afraid of him.

  Phil came out of Nora’s room. The side of his face was bruised, his lips swollen. “What happened to you?” Phillip asked his son. “You and Alec have a fight?”

  “Are you serious, dad?”

  “Of course I’m serious!” Phillip snapped. “Can’t I get a sensible reply out of anybody in this house?”

  “You hit me, dad,” Phil said. “Is that sensible enough for you?”

  “When did I hit you?” Phillip asked, ignoring the sarcasm. “And why did I hit you?”

  “Dad . . .”

  “Tell him, son,” Jeanne said. “He was so drunk he doesn’t remember. Or claims he doesn’t,” she added.

  “You hit me twice, dad. About seven o’clock this morning. I came back here to get some things for school. Mother was staggering around, all doped up on those pills you forced her to take. And Nora was half hysterical. Yelling and crying. You were sitting on the stairs, a nearly empty bottle of Scotch in your hand. I tried to get some sense out of your babblings . . .”

  Phillip waved him silent. “What kind of babblings, son?”

  “You were talking about the devil, about Nazis, about some sort of exorcism that failed. How you were going to die. You kept shoving me around. When I asked you to stop, you belted me.”

  “Phil, do you remember us going to the market . . . the other day”—he couldn’t remember what day—“and talking about Nora?”

  “Dad, I haven’t been to the market with you in two or three years.”

  Manipulated, the word came to Phillip. Somehow Nora and . . . Satan—he mentally stumbled over the word—had erased from his family’s minds all that had happened. For him to say any more would only make matters worse. But he knew he had to continue. And what had Phil said? Th
at he was going to die?

  Phillip glanced at his wife. “The attic. The attic door. My sister.”

  “Your . . . sister?” Jeanne questioned. “You don’t have a sister, Phillip. Please, let’s go into the den and sit down. Please? I’m sorry I yelled and swore at you. We’ve got to talk, Phillip, and you’ve got to see a doctor.”

  No, Phillip thought. I’ve got to see a priest. Especially one Father Joe Debeau. If I can find him. If he’s real. If I’m not crazy.

  “Very well,” Phillip said. “But first I want to see the door leading to the attic.”

  “As you wish, Philip.” Jeanne stepped aside in the hall.

  As he walked past her, carefully, Phillip thought: Nora doesn’t know about Dr. Harte. I’ve got to keep all thoughts of her out of my mind. And I’ve got to contact her.

  That is, if she is real.

  Phillip stopped at the short flight of steps leading to the attic. He looked at the door. It came as no surprise.

  The door was intact. Not broken. Not splintered. Not temporarily patched.

  “Are you satisfied, Phillip?” Jeanne asked.

  “No. But for the time being, it will have to do. Let’s go to the den.”

  “Are you sure you can make it without falling down?” she asked sarcastically.

  “I’ve give the old college try,” he said, an equal dose of sarcasm in his voice.

  Weaver, he thought as he walked slowly down the stairs. Nora saw him last night too. Paul is in danger. I have to contact him.

  That is, if any of this is real.

  He knew it was all too real.

  Got to call Sam too. Warn him of the danger. He had to get out of the house.

  If he could.

  And what had happened to Father Debeau?

  In the den, he turned to face his wife. “I think I’ll shower and change. Get something to eat. Then we’ll talk. I think that would be best. I’ll use the downstairs shower. Would you get me something to wear?”

  She looked at him for a short moment. “All right, Philip.” She left the room.

  Phillip checked his pockets for keys and wallet and grabbed his coat. He was a mile down the road before Jeanne realized he was gone.

  She started to call the police, then pulled back her hand. No, not yet.

  “He’ll be back, mother,” Nora said. “He’s probably gone to get another bottle, since you hid all the liquor in the house.”

  “Yes,” Jeanne said, smiling at the child. “I’m sure you’re right, baby.”

  “I’ve got his pistol,” Phil said. “I took it off the desk over there and put it in a drawer. It was loaded.”

  “He’s insane, mother,” Nora said. “Perhaps you’d better call the doctor and tell him what daddy has done.”

  “That is an excellent thought, Nora,” Jeanne said. “Thank you for being so grownup.”

  “I’m just trying to help, Mother,” Nora said. She fought to keep a victorious smile from her pretty little mouth.

  Upstairs, in the closet, the jack-in-the-box chuckled gleefully.

  Phillip pulled into a service station and used the pay phone to call Sheela’s office. He caught her just as she was leaving. Tersely he told her what had happened.

  “Where is Joe?” she asked, when Phillip broke for a breath.

  “I don’t know. He may well be dead for all I know. They’re setting me up for the loony bin, Sheela.”

  “Nora is,” she corrected. “Don’t go back into that house, Phillip,” she warned him. “Nora’s taken over. She has full control of their minds. She can do anything she wishes now.”

  “Dammit, Sheela. I have to go back. Christ, I live there.”

  “It isn’t safe.”

  “I sure know that.”

  “Do you have Sam’s number?”

  Phillip started to give it to her, then hesitated. “All you’ll get is an answering machine,” he lied, not really knowing why he was doing that. A tiny dot of suspicion had entered his mind. “Sam’s out of town. Won’t be back for several days.”

  “That’s all right. It’s you I’m worried about. Why don’t you come into the city and check into a hotel?”

  “OK. That’s a good idea. I’ll call you as soon as I’m checked in.”

  “I’ll be waiting, Phillip.”

  He broke the connection and immediately dialed his office. He felt sure Sam would be working late, and he was right. “Don’t talk, Sam. Just listen.” he brought him up to date. “Get out of town, Sam. I think you’re in danger.”

  “I’m not running, Phillip. Look, come on in and stay with me.”

  “No. I’ve got to go back to the house.”

  “Man, don’t be a fool. If your suspicions are solid, everybody is against you. Weaver, Debeau, Dr. Harte—everybody.”

  “I know, Sam. But I have to try to get to the bottom of it. I’ve got to find out the why of it all. And I could be wrong about Weaver and the others. Jeanne and Phil are merely pawns in all this. Remember that, Sam, and take care of them. It isn’t their fault.”

  “Phillip! Don’t go back into that . . .”

  Phillip hung up on his friend and walked slowly back to his car. He turned around and pointed the nose of his car north. Back toward his house. When he pulled into the drive, the evil emanating from the huge old house struck him hard. He looked at his watch. Four-thirty. Be dark soon, he thought.

  As he got out of the car, fat flakes of snow hit him in the face. Almost as if someone had opened a storm gate, the snow suddenly intensified, coming down in a blinding sheet of white.

  He looked up toward the second floor. Nora was standing in her bedroom, gazing out the window. Even from that distance, Phillip could tell her face was swollen where he’d struck her. Nora was dressed all in black—at least from the waist up. It looked as though she was dressed in that Nazi getup again, he thought. Her blond hair was clean and shining. She smiled and waved to her father, motioning him to come to her.

  “I remember now,” Phillip said aloud, Debeau’s words returning to him. His voice was flat against the falling snow. He remembered the Last Rites—his Last Rites. He stared at Nora. “One of us will not live through this night.”

  As if she could hear her father’s words—and Phillip felt she probably could—Nora laughed.

  Behind the girl, free from its confines, the jack-in-the-box swayed to the rhythm of the dirge.

  Phillip walked toward the house.

  17

  “I was worried about you, Phillip,” Jeanne said. “Where did you go?”

  “Driving. To try to clear my head.”

  “I called Dr. Spalding. I made an appointment for you at ten tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine. Now, Jeanne, I want you to tell me everything Nora claims I did to her. Bearing in mind the child has lied all her life.”

  Jeanne’s eyes became filled with contempt. “You still insist upon blaming everything on that poor child, don’t you?”

  Phillip’s eyes found something out of place in the den. He walked over to an end table to investigate. A pair of black leather gloves. He knew from looking at them they would be too small for him and too large for Phil. He picked up the gloves and held them out to Jeanne. “Not mine, Jeanne. Not Phil’s, either. So who do they belong to?”

  She looked at the unfamiliar gloves. Lifted her eyes to Phillip. “I . . . don’t know.”

  “I do, honey. Father Joseph Debeau.” He looked at the expensive gloves. Looked inside. Fr J B was stitched inside. He tossed the gloves to Jeanne. “I wonder who Father J B is?”

  “You . . . ah, put them there,” she said lamely, a wary look mixed with confusion entering her eyes.

  “Grabbing at straws, aren’t you, Jeanne?”

  Music began drifting down from the second floor. “You know what that music is, Jeanne?” Phillip asked.

  She looked up. “No.”

  “That’s coming from Nora’s little friend, Jeanne. The jack-in-the-box. Now do you remember?”

&nb
sp; “I . . .” She paled, twisting her face as she struggled to remember. “Yes. In a way I do. How could I have forgotten that horrid thing?”

  “Nora’s using you again, Jeanne. The Vincincis, Jeanne. We talked about them—remember?”

  “We . . . no, you can’t know about that!”

  “But I do, Jeanne. You and me and Father Debeau sat in this very den and talked it all out. The affair my mother had with the young priest. The Center up at Canaan. My sister Jane. Everything, Jeanne. We finally brought it all out into the open. Remember it, Jeanne. For God’s sake, try!”

  She put her hands to her temples. “My head, Phillip. God, it hurts!”

  Jeanne was suddenly flung backward, hit by an invisible fist. She screamed as blood squirted from smashed lips. Sprawling on the floor, she sobbed in fear and pain and confusion. Glimpsing movement in the open den doors, Phillip looked up. Phil and Nora stood there. Nora had changed out of her black outfit.

  “You horrible person!” Nora squalled at him, her words springing from her swollen mouth. She ran to her mother’s side.

  “I didn’t hit her, Phil,” the father said. “I swear I didn’t.”

  “You liar!” Nora screamed at her father. “Dirty, filthy liar! And I suppose you’re going to say you didn’t make me undress and sit naked in your lap last night, either, you dirty horrible pervert.”

  “You’re sick, dad,” Phil said. “I don’t want to do this, but I have to do it. I’m calling the police.”

  Phillip’s head once more suffered through that steel-band feeling, the excruciating pain that almost blinded him. He fought the sensation. When the pain had abated, he was filled with anger and frustration and helplessness. He glared at his son. “Listen to me, Phil. Please. Nora is using you, boy. Try to remember, son. Try to remember our talks about Nora. Think, son, think!”

  The music began playing. The jack-in-the-box began laughing. Nora looked at her father, her eyes blazing with an evil light. Phillip felt his big hands curl into fists. He felt all control leaving him as he experienced a slight out-of-body sensation. Then another being or force took possession of him. He stepped toward Phil.