by Riley, R. Thomas; Zoot, Campbell; Chandler, Randy; Kauwe, Faith
"No," answered Harry. "Billy ain't the only one ever took a nip amongst the rafters, but it serves him right if he got caught. He only got his pants wet when his bottle broke. Now this one 'a mine blew and I got cut up some. Ever time somethin' happens, it's a little bit worse. Next man might get cut up real bad. We ain't staying to find out."
Jake started to say something more, then stopped, and threw up his hands in an 'I give up' gesture.
Harry started down the hill, the rest of the men tramping behind him, then turned to speak his final piece.
"Jest you remember, Jake Schaperelli—we wasn't the ones who said 'spook.'"
* * *
"I guess word got out, because Schaperelli couldn't hire a replacement crew anywhere, even in Norfolk," Dix told Correy, "And that's over a hundred miles away. I finally had to pay a housing allowance for workmen to come down from the District to finish the roof."
"And all this because some guy sits on his pocket flask, another nicks his thermos so it implodes, and a third leaves his soda laying out in the hot sun?"
"Well, as far as that goes, I've talked to Harry Bates, and he swears that bottle wasn't out of his lunch cooler more than a minute before it let go."
"And you believe him? Did he hear bells, too?"
"He heard something, I think, when he was helping fit the new balustrades in place on the Widow's Walk, but he won't say what. Says it's bad luck to talk about such things."
"For Pete's sake, Steve, can't you see these locals were giving you the business? I bet if you'd told your foreman to offer them extra what you paid for housing, they'd have been back on the job fast enough."
"Not likely. Anyhow, wait 'til you see the rest of what I've found out. I got in touch with Victoria Combs, and she let me have copies of the sources she and Raines used when they wrote that 'Historic Buildings' book. And I've had a reference service dig out a lot more."
Dix shuffled the papers on his desk once again, then handed a sheaf to Correy. The top sheet was labeled "Excerpt from the letter of Clarissa Kilmer Brand to her mother, June 1838."
"Although the weather remains stifling, we are still treated to a pleasant dinner of the evenings, with fresh oysters on ice and cool salads from the gardens that abound hereabouts. Aunt Ella calls us to table with a most delicate chime from her crystal bell, just as I remember when I stayed here as a little girl. Cousin John is his usual taciturn self, and says cruel things behind his mother's back, but I think he means little of it."
The second sheet was labeled "Annals of the Magistrates Assizes" and was undated.
"Then did the honorable Dr. Plummer state that Ella Weifel was dead of a crushing blow to the head, being it the result of a fall down the great stair in Campan Hall. Thus ended the Doctor's evidence. Mercy Chamberlain was next called, and did state that she had found her mistress at the foot of the great stair. Then did she add that the poor lady had indeed met with the peace of the Lord in her final hour, for she lay in a position of repose with her hands folded on her bosom."
"I've seen enough," said Correy, handing back the rest of the sheaf unread. "You've obviously put together a case for Ella Weifel's ghost haunting this place, and nothing I say will change your mind."
"But it's true, Mike—it's all there, testimony, diaries, letters —just read between the lines. John Davis murdered his own mother. Smashed her head in with a bottle down in that dismal wine cellar, then brought the body back up to the main hall and arranged it to look like she'd fallen." Dix thrust the papers into Correy's hands again.
"And what's all this nonsense with broken glassware?"
"Her spirit, Mike—it entered the bottle in the instant of her death, and flows from bottle to bottle in search of revenge. That's why everything in the cellar was smashed. John Davis must have believed that if he could catch her in a bottle and break it with her spirit trapped inside, that would be the end of her, but all the bottles had to be broken so she'd have no place for escape."
"And you were trying the same thing earlier—to trap her in that decanter? A ghost in a bottle? Even if there was such a thing, what's she ever done to you?"
"She gave me twenty-two stitches and an index finger that'll never be right again, that's what." Dix held out his hand to display the scar that Correy had noticed earlier. "It was the first day I moved in. I picked up some stuff for sandwiches in Mechanicsville on the way, then spent the morning trying to get the new central air conditioner regulated—it was like an iceberg when I got here. When I quit for lunch and reached into the cabinet where I'd shoved things, there was the razor edge of a broken mayonnaise jar waiting for me. Cut clear through one tendon. I drove all the way to the clinic in Tappahannock with one hand wrapped in a towel and blood dripping on the floor."
"Steve, that proves exactly nothing. People cut themselves on broken glass every day."
"Easy enough for you to say, but I tell you I was booby-trapped. When I got back and looked in that cabinet, it was full of broken glass. Mayonnaise, mustard, pickles—every jar was either cracked or broken completely. It was a mess."
"You probably broke the other jars when you let go of the mayonnaise."
"I don't think so. I was so scared I just jerked my hand away and ran for a bathroom towel."
"Scared? Did you think you were going to bleed to death or something?"
"No, Mike—just as I reached into that cabinet I heard Ella Weifel ring her little bell."
* * *
Correy left Dix shuffling papers at his desk, and began a self-guided prowl around Campion and its overgrown grounds. He took only a brief moment to glance around the renovated kitchen, and an even briefer one to read the information plate riveted to the massive new air conditioning unit humming away outside the kitchen door. However, after he'd tramped through the tall grass to reach the shade of the crabapple orchard, he spent an entire half hour staring up at the Widow's Walk perched atop the shingled mansard roof, shielding his eyes as he watched the chimney swifts wheel and dip in the shimmering noontime air. Finally, mopping his face in the growing humidity, he returned to the house, where he descended into the basement. Ignoring the sharp odor of not-quite-cured cement, he devoted himself to a careful inspection of the white-washed brick chimney that had once provided outlet for a cellar fireplace and still served fireplaces on all the floors above.
"Steve, come down here, will you," he called up the stairs upon arriving back in the kitchen.
"Now," he continued, after his host had joined him, "Let's take a look at the cabinet that harbored the deadly mayonnaise bottle."
" I don't keep anything in there now," said Dix. "My cleaning service took care of that mess on their weekly visit."
"OK," said Correy, swinging wide the cabinet door, "Then just put your hand down here. What do you feel?"
"Well—cold air. Like somebody just opened the refrigerator."
"Now look way in the back. What do you see?"
"Don't know. Looks like a bunch of pipes."
"That 'bunch of pipes' is the coolant distribution manifold for that monster of a commercial air conditioning system you had installed in this place. They brought the main line in behind the cabinets to hide it, and someone screwed up and forgot to insulate the manifold."
"Oh,” said Dix, clapping his hand to his forehead in a burst of dawning awareness, "And when I came in and found the air conditioner stuck on the supercool setting . . ."
". . . you put your collection of jars into what amounted to a very efficient little freezer," finished Correy. "Are you surprised that they were all cracked and broken by the time you stopped for lunch?"
"No, I suppose not," said Dix, trying to grin and not being very successful.
"Well, then maybe I have something that will surprise you. It's here in your real refrigerator—a little housewarming present I put down to cool right after I got here."
He turned from the refrigerator to display a bottle of French champagne cradled in both hands.
Dix jumped ba
ck, hands thrown up to protect his face, belying his calm acceptance of the 'logical explanation' of a moment before.
"Don't worry," said Correy. "Ella didn't jump into this bottle when you smashed the decanter. Grab a couple of those wonderful plastic cups of yours and we'll see if we can locate the old girl."
Correy led the way back to the deep-shadowed living room, with Dix trailing woodenly behind.
"A toast," he said, standing before the fireplace and twisting at the seal of the heavy green bottle. "To the health of the Campion Ghost. She should be along any moment."
The popping of the champagne cork was followed so closely by the ringing of a bell that the echoes, amplified in the maw of the massive fireplace, blended into a single hollow sound. Dix took a step backwards, his eyes widening, but Correy grabbed him by the arm and steered him forcibly toward the front hall.
"Now we've got her!" shouted Correy, in obvious mock excitement, tightening his grip and hustling the unresisting Dix up the sweeping staircase. "Quick! She's up there. The Widow's Walk!" With his stumbling host still in tow, he clambered to the third floor landing, then up the final iron spiral to emerge onto the rooftop where they both stood blinking in the glare of the noontime Virginia sun.
"Now! Now! Here she comes!" said Correy, swinging Dix about to face the weatherbeaten brick chimney that served as a central pillar for the balustrades at one end of the Walk. As they watched, a swift launched itself from the chimney in a flurry of feathers, its wings brushing against the lightning rod as it soared off.
A bit of metal, a few inches long, hung from the rod by a piece of brass window-sash chain.
A bit of metal, like the clapper of a bell, that swung against the rod, sending its chime tinkling down the chimney to the rooms below.
A bit of metal, made from scraps of welded iron rebar, and shaped into the form of a cross.
" Another cross to add to your collection, Steve," said Correy, laughing at the gasping and near-fainting Dix. "Your jolly local work crew tried to seal off the whole house before they left. Behold, my friend, that most diminutive of Iron Maidens -- or should I say Iron Widows—otherwise known as Ella Ding-Dong, the Campion ghost. Now, if you'll just reach up there and pull her off her perch, we can go downstairs and polish off that champagne in peace."
* * *
The bus ride from Friendship Airport back to Glen Burnie had been uneventful, and Correy spent the time musing on the events of the day before. I suppose I shouldn't have been so hard on him, he thought, but he's been such a pain at times—so cocksure of himself and what his family's money could do. I don't know why we've stayed in touch. Maybe we won't after this. He certainly was eager enough to get rid of me, once I'd debunked his precious ghost. He reached in his jacket pocket, pulling out the crude metal talisman that he'd taken from the chimney. Dix, even at the last, had refused to touch it or keep it in the house.
Once comfortably at home in his apartment, he dropped the cross on the bed and began his bachelor's post-travel ritual of putting everything away. Unused shirts, each to their hanger, socks to their drawer, toiletries to the medicine cabinet.
Well,he thought, with his bottle of aftershave lotion in hand, Now here's a hiding place for dear old Ella that I forgot about. She sure didn't show up swimming in the champagne yesterday.
He laughed aloud. Wouldn't that be funny. Perhaps she'd be on the ingredient list -- 'alcohol, fragrance, ghostly presence.' Acting on the whim, he held the glistening glass bottle up close, squinting to read what the ingredients really were.
My God, he thought, what's making that ringing noise?
But it was too late to turn his face away.
STRESS CONTROL
By Gustavo Bondoni
Yael awoke from a deep, refreshing sleep to find that the lights were much too bright and aimed right at his eyes. His tongue fumbled in his mouth a little while he tried to form the words to complain.
Before he could say anything at all, though, a line of fire streaked across his stomach, pain unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He screamed and tried to sit up, tried to move his arms to defend his midriff, but was unable to do so. He seemed to be immobilized, tied to the bed. All he could do was lift his head as he screamed.
Standing above him dressed in spotless blue-green scrubs, and holding a bloody scalpel in one hand, was one of the undead… or were they called “recycled humans” or “formerly alive” now? Reanimates, that was the word. But it didn’t really matter at the moment. “What are you doing?” Yael’s voice was a high-pitched shout. Then he screamed some more as the thing did something inside his abdominal cavity. This time there were no words, just primal expression of exquisite pain.
The reanimate’s dead eyes looked at him clinically, and Yael got a good look at his torturer. This one was an old reanimate, trusted enough to work on live humans as a surgeon, one could tell by the missing skin around the cheeks, where continuous scrubbing with antibacterial agents had worn a groove in the dead flesh which allowed a piece of jawbone and teeth to be seen through it.
“Help me! Stop it! I’m awake! The anes…” But the word was too long, it never made it across his lips, and lost itself in a long scream as the surgeon continued to ignore him as it worked to cut something loose from his lower stomach. Sick bubbling noises reached Yael’s ears. He tried to catch the nurse’s eye, but the pale gray tone of her skin told him that she would only obey instructions from the surgeon or one of the hospital staff. They were not to be ordered around by mere patients.
By the time he finally lost consciousness again, his throat felt as if he’d been swallowing glass, and his screams were nothing but a whisper. The darkness was a welcome relief.
***
As consciousness returned, memory did as well, and Yael flinched involuntarily. He groped for his midsection, but a gentle hand restrained him. “You shouldn’t touch the bandages. Those stitches should hold perfectly well, but it’s best to let them be.”
The voice belonged to a large matronly nurse, fully alive, thankfully, who looked like the ideal of a mother figure: plump, blonde and blue-eyed. But the rings around her eyes were the most comforting thing about her. They let him know that she was worried about a world which had little in common with the sidewalks and playgrounds of their childhoods. A world where death might be a career opportunity.
“I need…” his voice failed him. But the angel in the uniform handed him a glass of water. “I need to see the administrator,” he said.
“You are too weak for meetings, Mr. Moreno.”
“I don’t care.” He wanted to jump out of the bed, storm into the hospital administrator’s office and beat the living daylights out of him. Tossing him out of a high window was an attractive option—maybe they would reanimate him as an underwater sewage worker. But the nurse was right, he got dizzy just raising his voice, so he took a couple of deep breaths. “Look, I really need to talk to someone.”
The nurse looked doubtful, but nodded. “I’ll see what I can do.”
A few minutes later—suspiciously quickly—a thirtyish woman in a light grey suit approached his bed. She was immaculately formal, and her black hair was tied back in a severe bun. The only thing about her that wasn’t strictly business was the chest —perhaps a little too much cleavage showing for it to be an accident. Yael was immediately put on guard: this was a strong woman who would use all her weapons to plow any resistance under.
And there was no question about the fact that he was her enemy.
She smiled broadly at him. “Mr. Moreno, I’m glad to see you up and about. We’re all very happy that your operation was a success.”
This took him aback for a moment. The woman went on: “I’m Amy Sinclair, director for institutional communication, and I’m here to answer any questions you might have regarding Adams Memorial.”
“I’m going to sue you, and your bosses and everyone involved in this place. I’m going to send you back to whatever trust-fund hole you climbed out of. You, y
our bosses and those pieces of rotting meat you call surgeons. Now get me a real director, not some spin-doctor they put here to try to confuse the patients.”
She was good, her smile barely wavered. “I’m sorry you feel our service was somehow deficient. Would you like to tell me what you are concerned about?”
“You already know exactly what happened, you bitch. But at least I’ll have the last laugh. Someday, you’ll be the one tied to a table, watching while a barely controlled monstrosity slices you open, not knowing whether the conditioning will fail and the thing will go for your brain. In your case, though, it would probably tear a chunk or two out of your boobs—even though I bet they’re really just silicone under there, so it wouldn’t waste too much time.” He spat. “Get out of my sight. I’ll let my lawyers talk to the director. They’ll probably listen to him.”
She barely batted an eyelash at the tirade, just turned and left. Yael was left trembling and weak, trying to find the suddenly absent nurse.
***
The lawyer removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He was red-faced and corpulent, with small black eyes buried under folds of flesh. There was no question that he wasn’t a high-powered attorney, but then Yael couldn’t afford high-powered attorneys any more than he could afford insurance that would get him operated on by human doctors. Those things weren’t available on a working man’s pay.
“Look,” the lawyer said, “I think you should just drop the complaint. The hospital has the best lawyers in town. They’re used to these kinds of problems, and it’s not as if they did you any permanent harm.” He paused and smiled. “Any time you actually walk out of a hospital, you should consider yourself ahead of the game—and you made it out with all your fingers and toes. Jackpot.”
Yael worked to keep his temper. This guy might not be much, but he was Yael’s only hope of getting some kind of justice. “I can’t let this go. Until you’ve been sitting on a slab with one of those things cutting you open like it was gutting a fish, you can’t just tell me to leave it.”
