Jack: Secret Histories
Page 22
So he simply shrugged.
But Weezy said, “It was my idea, Officer.”
Tim smiled. “Deputy.”
Weezy did her whatever face and said, “Isn’t there something you can do about this? Someone you can arrest or we can sue for desecrating this site?”
“Desecrating?” Tim frowned. “It’s not like it was a church or anything.”
“Could have been at one time. It might have contained secrets hidden for … forever.”
“Secrets?”
Oh, no, Jack thought. Don’t get her started on secrets. He searched for a way to change the subject.
“Did your friend ever get that photo from his helicopter?”
Tim nodded. “As a matter of fact, he did.” He reached through the open window of his patrol car and pulled out a half dozen eight-by-ten photos. “Took a bunch of them from different angles on two different runs.” He handed them to Jack. “Take a look.”
Jack studied the top photo, then handed it off to Weezy. He did the same with all six. The last was taken from almost directly overhead. It best showed the devastation caused by the backhoe because the angle of the sun shadowed the trench. Jack studied this one the longest. Something about it tickled his brain, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
When he handed it to Weezy he heard her gasp.
“See something?” Tim asked.
Weezy stared a moment longer, then shook her head. “No. Just a shadow.” She looked up at Tim. “Can I have one of these? Please-please-please?”
He laughed. “Sure.”
She held up the overhead shot she’d been looking at. “This one.”
“It’s yours. Now, I want the three of you back on your bikes and heading for home.”
He stood there and watched them do just that. He paced them awhile, following behind, then bop-tooted and rolled away, leaving them on their own.
As soon as he was out of sight, Weezy stopped and pulled the photo from her basket.
“Jack! Did you see this?”
He stopped beside her and looked over her shoulder. Again that tickling feeling that he was missing something.
“Yeah. But obviously you see something I don’t.”
“Watch.”
The tip of her finger traced the trench that had replaced the mound. Jack stiffened as he recognized the figure.
“That’s … that’s on the seal”—what had Dad called it?—”the sigil of …”
She was nodding. “Yeah. The Lodge.”
4
Secret histories …
As he’d done last night, Jack sat in the dark, staring at a building. Only instead of on Harding Street, he was down near the bank of Quaker Lake. And not in a tree, but sitting with his back against the big oak. And it wasn’t Steve’s house he was staring at, but the Lodge that squatted across the water, a light on in one of its high, narrow windows.
Secrets … secrets everywhere.
Maybe Weezy was right. Maybe there was a Secret History of the World. The Pine Barrens probably held a lot of it—like the pine lights and that shape in the woods—but he’d bet the Lodge was well up there in what it knew and hid. Like how old it was, and how long it had existed on that spot—not the building itself, but the Ancient Septimus Fraternal Order … how long had it been here? If that mound was pre-Columbian, and had been built by the Lodge, it meant the Lodge had been here a long, long time. And if the mound was prehistoric …
That didn’t even bear thinking.
Secrets …
Did the troopers and suits who’d dug up the mound find anything? If so, they weren’t telling.
But Weezy knew of other mounds. Maybe it was time for the two of them to start some digging of their own. Maybe they’d find another cube with a pyramid inside. He doubted it, but never say never.
He still had the copies of the pyramid’s symbols. What secret did they hold?
And even Weezy … she had a secret or two as well. Jack sensed it, but hadn’t a clue as to what. Maybe it had something to do with all those Friday morning trips to Medford.
Secrets …
The town itself had a secret history. How had Old Town come to be named Quakerton before any Quakers existed?
Even his own family had a secret history. Why wouldn’t Dad talk about the war? What had happened there to make him clam up whenever it was mentioned? And what did he keep locked in that box?
Jack realized that he too had a secret: exposing Steve’s father. He couldn’t tell anyone about it. Yeah, some people would call him a hero, but sure as the sun rose every morning, Steve would eventually find out. And Steve would hate him. Soon everyone in town would be looking at him strangely, and holding their tongues when he was about.
Because everybody had secrets.
Jack simply wanted to come and go as he pleased, with no one taking any special notice of him. Just another face in the crowd.
Just … Jack.
Movement across the lake caught his eye. He watched a gray limousine—looked like a Bentley—pull up before the Lodge and stop in the pool of light around its entrance. A uniformed driver hopped out and opened the rear door. A very tall man in a white suit unfolded himself from the passenger compartment. He had black, slicked-back hair but Jack couldn’t make out his face at this distance.
The man sauntered to the front steps of the Lodge, but instead of going inside, he stopped and turned in Jack’s direction. He seemed to be staring directly at Jack. But how could that be? Jack was sitting in deep shadow. No way the man could see him.
Yet he kept staring, and it made Jack uncomfortable. Finally he turned and disappeared inside. The chauffeur followed him in, lugging two large suitcases.
Was he moving in? Into the Lodge itself? Jack had never heard of anyone actually living there.
Mr. Challis’s words came back to him: … the Council is sending someone to take charge of our Lodge …
Was that him? If so, he was one creepy guy. And why had he seemed to be staring at him?
Jack wanted to keep his distance from that place. The arrests of Mr. Brussard and Challis, and Challis’s confession about how they’d killed Boruff according to “sacred rites,” had embarrassed the Lodge. Better they didn’t know he’d been instrumental in that.
And still … he had a feeling he wasn’t through with the Lodge.
As for what he’d seen outside Steve’s house last night … better not talk about that. Had he really seen anything? Now, just twenty-four hours later, it seemed unreal. Maybe just a trick of the light. But maybe not …
The uneasy feeling vanished in the persistent memory of the sensations that had shot through him Saturday night when Mr. Brussard had stepped into the trap and given himself away. All because of Jack, who had come upon a bad circumstance, a broken situation, and fixed it.
What a rush … maybe like what Steve felt when he drank or popped a pill. At least Steve’s mother was aware of that now. Hopefully she’d get him some help.
But as for Jack … he was hooked on that feeling. If he saw a chance to do another fix, he’d go for it.
He could hardly wait.
Coming soon:
JACK: SECRET VENGEANCE
www.repairmanjack.com
THE SECRET HISTORY
OF THE WORLD
The preponderance of my work deals with a history of the world that remains undiscovered, unexplored, and unknown to most of humanity. Some of this secret history has been revealed in the Adversary Cycle, some in the Repairman Jack novels, and bits and pieces in other, seemingly unconnected works. Taken together, even these millions of words barely scratch the surface of what has been going on behind the scenes, hidden from the workaday world. I’ve listed these works below in the chronological order in which the events in them occur.
Note: “Year Zero” is the end of civilization as we know it; “Year Zero Minus One” is the year preceding it, etc.
THE PAST
“Demonsong” (prehistory)
�
��Aryans and Absinthe” (1923–1924)
Black Wind (1926–1945)
The Keep (1941)
Reborn (February–March 1968)
“Dat Tay Vao” (March 1968)
Jack: Secret Histories (1983)
YEAR ZERO MINUS THREE
“Faces” (early summer)
The Tomb (summer)
“The Barrens"* (ends in September)
“The Wringer”
“A Day in the Life"* (October)
“The Long Way Home”
Legacies (December)
YEAR ZERO MINUS TWO
Conspiracies (April) (includes “Home Repairs”)
All the Rage (May) (includes “The Last Rakosh”)
Hosts (June)
The Haunted Air (August)
Gateways (September)
Crisscross (November)
Infernal (December)
YEAR ZERO MINUS ONE
Harbingers (January)
Bloodline (April)
The Touch (ends in August)
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium (ends in September)
“Tenants”*
yet-to-be-written Repairman Jack novels
YEAR ZERO
“Pelts"*
Reprisal (ends in February)
the last Repairman Jack novel (ends in April)
Nightworld (starts in May)
Reborn, The Touch, and Reprisal will be back in print before too long. I’m planning a total of sixteen or seventeen Repairman Jack novels (not counting the young adult titles), ending the Secret History with the publication of a heavily revised Nightworld.
*available in The Barrens and Others