“But he"s not breathing!” Weezy said. “He needs CPR!”
Right—no!
Can"t get air into water-filled lungs, he remembered. Always do a Heimlich first! Jack lifted Cody"s limp body to a sitting position and got behind him. He placed a
fist under his breastbone, covered it with another hand and began thrusting. “What are you doing, Jack?” Weezy wailed. “He needs CPR!”
No, he knew he was right.
Suddenly powerful hands tore him away from Cody. He looked up and saw Mr.
Drexler"s angry face.
“Take over, Eggers,” he said to his driver, then looked at Jack and Weezy. “And
you … you two have caused a big problem.”
Jack watched Eggers sling Cody over his shoulder like an empty sack, then begin
jouncing the limp little body.
“What"s he doing?” Jack said.
“What you were attempting—only better. I assume that"s the Bockman boy?” Jack nodded.
“Yes, he—”
“Quickly, Eggers!” Mr. Drexler said. “Take him up to that sinkhole.” His
expression was stern as he turned to them. “Who do you two think you are, breaking
into private property and vandalizing it.”
“We didn"t vandalize anything!” they replied in unison.
He pointed to the water now bubbling through the opening and spreading over
the floor.
“That water is about to irreparably damage a lot of valuable furniture. I call that
vandalizing. Shut that trapdoor immediately.”
“We can"t,” Jack said. “The pyramid"s down there … in the water.” Mr. Drexler looked as if he were about to explode. “You—”
“Who cares about that!” Jack shouted. “Cody"s dead!”
He ran for the stairs, pounded up to the first floor and out the open front door. It had stopped raining, but thunder still muttered and grumbled off to the east. Eggers was at the curb, trying Heimlichs on Cody"s limp form.
It"s no use, Jack thought, feeling his throat lock. He"s gone.
And then a sloppy, soggy figure stepped from the shadows.
“Hey, what"s goin" down here?” he said.
Jack recognized Walt"s voice. He looked like he must have been standing out in
the storm the whole time.
“Get away,” Eggers said.
“Naw, man,” he said, leaning over the boy. His voice sounded clear, not a hint of
a slur. “I know this kid. I been waiting for him.”
He reached for Cody"s hand. Jack noticed with a start that he wasn"t wearing
gloves.
Waiting for him? Was this why he"d been hanging around Old Town? But how
could he possibly—?
He touched Cody"s hand and as soon as they made contact, Cody jerked and
coughed up what seemed like a quart of water.
Walt staggered back like he"d received a shock, then began to wander away. “Walt?”
Walt turned and gave him a dazed look, then faded back into the shadows. When Mrs.
Clevenger had told him to stop drinking, she"d said, You may be
needed in the next day or so. Was this what she"d meant?
What just happened here?
Then Weezy rushed up behind him.
“Jack!” she said as she saw Cody gasping for air in Eggers"s arms. “He"s alive!”
She threw her arms around Jack and squeezed. “He"s going to be all right!” Jack felt his throat tighten. He was all right … Cody was all right. He might have
nightmares the rest of his life, but he was alive.
He felt a surge of pride.
Because of us.
Mr. Drexler appeared. “Well, that will make things less complicated. I called in an
emergency. And while we"re waiting you two will explain exactly how that child came to be in the Lodge"s basement.”
Taking turns, Jack and Weezy launched into a rundown of the night"s events. Mr.
Drexler didn"t seem too surprised at anything until they mentioned finding Cody in the lost town.
He held up a hand and stared at them.
“You found him down there? How could he possibly have—?”
“The creature brought him,” Jack said.
Mr. Drexler froze as if hit by a paralyzer beam. After a pause he said, “Creature?
What creature?”
“Some kind of weird bear,” Jack said. “We never saw it except for its black furry
arms and claws. Oh, and I saw something wormlike stick out of the water at the end.” “I saw it too,” Weezy said, glancing at Jack. “Looked like a tentacle but that
couldn"t be, right?”
Mr. Drexler looked as white as his suit as he leaned heavily on his cane. “No … couldn"t be.”
“Are you all right?” Weezy said.
Instead of giving an answer he asked a question. “You say this animal brought
the child underground. Why would it do that?”
“It was feeding him,” Jack said. “Maybe to fatten him up?”
“No,” Weezy said. “It was bringing him toys … like presents. Maybe it was lonely.
It almost seemed to be treating Cody like its own child. Maybe it wanted a child and couldn"t have one.”
“"Like its own child,"” Mr. Drexler repeated in a soft voice.
Weezy added, “Yes. I mean, it got Cody to safety first, then couldn"t save itself.
That has to mean something.”
Mr. Drexler looked dazed as he shook his head. “Incredible. None of this,
however, mitigates your breaking and entering, and the destruction of Lodge property.
This will have to be reported to the police.”
Jack felt his chest tighten. His folks were going to kill him. Plus he"d have some
kind of criminal record.
He glanced at Weezy who looked like he felt.
We"re cooked, he thought. Deep fried and well done.
“At least we found Cody,” he said. “So it wasn"t all for nothing.” He looked at Mr.
Drexler. “Do you have to report us?”
The man gave him a disgusted look, then his features relaxed. “Perhaps
something can be worked out.”
“What?” Weezy said, straightening. “Anything.”
Jack"s mood lightened at the ray of hope, but he was wary of this man. “I wish to exclude all mention of the Lodge or the Order from this,” Mr. Drexler
said. “Even though it hasn"t been opened in perhaps a century, I do not wish it known that the building"s basement housed a trapdoor into the underground.” Jack said, “But Cody will—”
“The child was unconscious during his brief time in the basement. He nearly
drowned in the underground and came to up here on the street. He will have no idea
he was ever in the Lodge. But the same cannot be said of you two.”
“You want us to say we were never in there?” Weezy said. “But he saw us
underground. He"ll remember that.”
“Of course he will.”
Jack raised his hands. This didn"t make any sense. “Then how do we explain how
we got underground?”
Mr. Drexler stopped and pointed to the front yard of the house next door. “You"ll say you fell through there.”
Jack looked and didn"t see what he was talking about. Suddenly Cody struggled
to his feet and stumbled toward them.
Crying, “Cody!” Weezy ran to him and he fell into her arms. “Jack!” she said,
lifting the boy. “Look!”
And then he saw it: a six-foot-wide hole in the front lawn—the sinkhole Mr.
Drexler had mentioned.
“I noticed the lake was lower on the way in,” Mr. Drexler said. “And when I saw
that sink hole, I instantly realized what was happening. But I had no idea …” His words drifted off as he sta
red in Cody"s direction.
“Why did you come back?”
“Hmm?” His attention returned from wherever it had been. “I didn"t at first. We"d
stopped for a bite to eat when I realized we"d left something behind.”
“The pyramid.”
“No.” He gave Jack a look. “That belongs here. Now I suppose it"s lost forever,
thanks to you and your girlfriend.”
Jack wasn"t going to let that pass. “Just as lost as it would still be if we hadn"t
found it in the Pines.”
Mr. Drexler stared at him, and Jack stared right back.
“And she"s not my girlfriend,” he added.
After a moment Mr. Drexler said, “Be that as it may, I sent Eggers back and he found the door unlocked. When he returned to me and reported that the pyramid was missing, I knew exactly who was to blame. But I wanted to see for myself before visiting your and the Connell girl"s parents. Upon my return I noticed the basement
lights on. You know the rest.”
Jack jumped at a loud crunching, sucking sound to his right. He looked and saw
a section of the street"s asphalt caving in not thirty feet away.
Another sinkhole.
“You can expect many more of those in Old Town before the night is over. The
lost town is crumbling beneath us.”
“Will there be anything left of it?”
“I doubt it.”
Jack pointed to the original hole. “So … we say we fell in there and found Cody.
How did we get out?”
“The flood waters floated you high enough to climb out. The revised story is
essentially true. All you are changing is the location of your ingress and egress. In exchange, I do not press charges.” He gave a small, condescending smile. “That way
the two of you can become big heroes in your little world.”
Jack didn"t want to be a hero, and was already working on ways to play down his
role, reducing it to just happening to be in the right place at the right time. The real hero—at the end, at least—was the animal. It had died saving Cody. Of course, Cody
wouldn"t have needed saving if it had left him alone in the first place.
The animal … Jack had a feeling Mr. Drexler knew something about it. “What do we say about the animal down there?”
Mr. Drexler fixed his gaze a thousand miles away. “Say what ever you wish.” “Not much to say since none of us saw it.”
“Then perhaps the less said, the better. The child"s story will be confused and
garbled, and will change again and again. No sense in causing undue alarm over a
creature that is undoubtedly dead.”
“What was it?”
Mr. Drexler kept his gaze averted. “I have no idea.”
“Yes, you do. You reacted when we told you about it.”
Finally he looked at Jack. “I assure you I do not know what it was. I have an
idea what it might have been, but …”
“But?”
“What it might have been should have died a long, long time ago. It seems
impossible that it could have survived this long.”
Frustration flooded Jack. Mr. Drexler was answering the question without telling
him anything.
“But what „might" it have been?”
“Let"s just call it a bear … an unusual breed of bear.”
What ever Jack had seen of the creature could be considered bearish … except
maybe for that tentacle thing. Okay … a mutant bear or some such.
“Could it or one of its ancestors have been caged in that stone pyramid out by
the mound?”
Mr. Drexler stared at him for a long moment. “You do get around, don"t you.” The wail of a siren filtered through the night. Jack looked down Quakerton Road
and saw flashing red lights heading their way.
“Do we have a deal?” Mr. Drexler said.
Jack nodded. “Deal. I"ll fill Weezy in. And I guess I"m fired, right?” The dark eyebrows lifted.
“Fired? Why would I fire you?”
“Well, I thought—”
“Oh, no. I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”
FRIDAY
1
“I should have stayed with you guys!” Eddie said for what had to be the thousandth time as they walked toward the bus stop. He was toying with his Rubik"s Cube, absently twisting it back and forth without looking at it. “Why didn"t I stay?”
“"Cause you"re a wimp,” Jack told him.
“I am! I am! Wimpacious maximus!”
They"d told him pretty much the same story they"d told everyone else, but with a
special variation since Eddie knew they"d been in the Lodge. They told him they hadn"t found the pyramid and had fallen into the sinkhole after leaving the building. “I could be a hero now like you guys!”
“Not until you straighten out that cube—or let a genius like me do it for you.”
“And let you be a Rubik"s hero too? As if.”
“We"re not heroes,” Weezy said. “Please stop saying that.”
“But you are! Man, if I"d been with you guys when you found Cody, I"d be wearing a
Superman cape to school today.”
“Then I"m glad you weren"t,” she said, glancing at Jack.
Yeah. Jack was glad too. There"d be no way of keeping a lid on Eddie. Sooner or later he"d spill the beans about being in the Lodge, ruining their deal with Mr. Drexler.
Jack and Weezy had quickly discussed it last night during the turmoil of the ambulance"s arrival. Neither wanted the attention that was coming, so they agreed to minimize their role in Cody"s rescue.
When they were questioned—by Tim, who"d shown up even though it wasn"t his shift—they told him they"d fallen through the sinkhole, heard Cody"s cries, and climbed back out with him.
What of Cody’s story of a monster keeping him prisoner?
We don’t know…we never saw it. Too dark to see anything down there.
What you did was very brave. You’re heroes.
We’re not. We literally fell into hesitation and did what anyone else would have done.
And that was the way it had gone. Jack asked Tim to keep their names out of it as much as possible. He"d seemed puzzled by the request but said he"d do what he could.
“How"s your head?” Weezy asked.
He touched the tender area of scalp at the rear, gooey now with Neosporin.
“Okay, I guess.”
The EMTs had looked at it last night and told him he"d be better off with stitches but, because it wasn"t a full-thickness cut, didn"t absolutely need them. Jack had opted for a little first-aid treatment.
His mother had almost fainted when she saw the blood on his shirt, but recovered and was suitably proud when Tim told her and Dad about Jack finding Cody.
He still didn"t understand what it had been about his blood that turned the animal off. Not that he was unhappy about that—no way. Just curious.
Curious about Walt too. Had it been pure coincidence that Cody had come to when Walt touched him, or …
Or what?
You may be needed in the next day or so…
This was all so crazy.
His folks had given him the option of staying home today, but he wanted to go in. Word of the rescue would be spreading through school and he wanted to be there to douse any hero talk.
Being a hero meant attention. Neither he nor Weezy wanted that. He wasn"t sure of Weezy"s reasons, but he knew she was self-conscious and probably figured the more people looked at her, the more flaws they"d find. He just wanted to be Jack … just Jack … a kid who could walk the halls and go where he wanted when he wanted without anyone paying much attention.
Yeah. No hero stuff. At least not on the outside. But inside he was feeling pretty damn good.
He"d put Mr. Vivino in his place and found a lost child a
lmost given up for dead.
Not bad for a night"s work.
Except for one thing …
“Think we"ll ever see that little pyramid again?”
Weezy closed her eyes and flinched—as if the question had caused physical pain.
He knew the answer, but wondered if Weezy could accept it. He had a wild vision of her at the controls of a backhoe digging up the streets of Old Town in search of the buried city and her pyramid.
“I don"t want to talk about it.”
“Well, then—”
“Okay, yes, I do. It"s gone for good, buried under Old Town. I know that. It makes me want to scream when I think of it lost down there, but it"s better than knowing it"s sitting on a shelf in the Lodge. I want it back like crazy, but I have to accept that it"s gone. At least it wasn"t stolen from us this time … we lost it. There"s a big difference—at least to me—if that makes any sense.”
“It does, kind of.” He looked at her. “You mean that?”
“Yeah … for the moment, anyway. I may feel entirely different by the time we get to school, but right now I see it as sort of a circle: The buried pyramid was uncovered—because of us. And now it"s buried again—because of us. Don"t you feel like a circle has closed?”
A circle closed … Had Weezy too noticed how recent events in their lives seemed to circle the pyramid?
“Yeah, I do. I definitely do.”
Jack felt a surge of relief, followed by a strange peace as they reached the highway.
He figured all the Johnson kids had heard—the word would have spread like the flu through the close-knit community—but the only out-of-town kids who"d know would be those who listened to the morning news on the local radio.
When they reached the highway he glanced right and was surprised to see Mrs. Vivino waiting at the elementary bus stop. Sally stood to the side with a couple of little kids while a group of the other mothers clustered close around her mother. No way they hadn"t heard.
The events at the VFW seemed like they"d happened weeks ago rather than just last night.
To his shock, Mrs. V broke away from the other women and began walking toward him.
“Jack? Can I speak to you?”
Jack stood frozen. What could she have to say to him?
Something about her expression made him want to say “No” and cross the street. But he hung tough.
“You two go ahead,” he said to Weezy and Eddie, as he walked toward Mrs. V.
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