by Ivan Blake
“Oh yeah,” the pudgy giant said, “I saw him on television.”
“So last time we met, why did you use a phony name, Mr. Chandler?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I’m trying to hide out from the press.”
“But that’s precisely why Mayor Paget believes you could be helpful to us, Mr. Chandler, because you’re something of a celebrity. Isn’t that right?”
“Maybe. First though, I’ve got a message for the Mayor. Tell him, Mrs. DuCalice says no to the haunted trail ride.”
“He won’t be happy.”
“Rose isn’t to blame. Vandals have smashed most of the gravestones...so there isn’t much of a graveyard to see anymore. It isn’t Mrs. DuCalice’s fault. In fact, she had decided to support the ride, but now...” Chris shrugged. “I’m sure the Mayor will understand. Let’s hope he and the police catch the idiots responsible.”
Gilbert’s face reddened. He was silent for a moment. “Anything else you wanted to say, Mr. Chandler?”
“Yes. Mrs. DuCalice feels so badly about canceling the ride, she’s asked me if I might do something to help you out. So, since I’ve some time on my hands, I came by to say I’ll help with publicity if you like, and anything else you think of.” He smiled the warmest smile he could muster.
The derisive look on Gilbert’s face was hard to miss. “As it happens,” he said, “we seem to have publicity under control. Since yesterday’s accident, the phones have been ringing off the hook. Right, Sweat?”
“I sold a hundred and twenty tickets this morning,” the pudgy giant said with a grin.
“Which makes how many in total?” Chris asked.
Sweat did some math in his head, and said, “Hundred seventy-three, I think.”
Chris looked around. “The theater holds, what, two hundred fifty people?”
“About that,” Gilbert replied.
“And you plan on doing five performances of your first play. So basically, you’ve sold one sixth of your tickets with less than three weeks to go.”
“Oh hell,” Dolli muttered.
“I’d say you could use my help.” Chris smiled again.
“Or another accident,” Gilbert muttered.
After brief introductions, Chris spent the next seven hours painting sets with Caspar Fredrik, helping cast members learn lines, pulling electrical wire with Manfred Arimanes, and scrubbing stains and gum from threadbare upholstery with Dolli Morgana. Between chores, he watched a catastrophically bad rehearsal of the Rottingwood inmates seizing control of their asylum during which Gilbert, in the role formerly performed by Doctor Shadow, actually fell off the stage, and Lassa Tetana, in the role previously played by Geraldine, knocked over the entire wall of the inmates’ common room. As Gilbert gave his cast their notes—which consisted of him ranting and raving, pacing about gesticulating wildly, and swearing a blue streak—Chris snuck away to explore the theater basement.
Descending into the cellar was like sinking into a poisoned bog. The smell was appalling, a combination of mold, rotting fabric, and a dirt floor soaked with oil from the rusting storage tank which fed the ancient cast-iron furnace. The room at the foot of the stairs contained the furnace and oil tank, and its only illumination was from a single bare bulb dangling in the middle of the space. In the dim light, every surface in the room glistened with moisture. Water trickled down through green slime on the foundation walls of the building.
A corridor ran the length of the basement, on both sides of which were several small rooms, like cells in a monastery. Chris hoped he might find the bones packed away in one of them, so he set off down the corridor to have a look. He quickly realized Gilbert’s father had been a hoarder. Every room was filled to bursting with garbage like broken chairs and popcorn machines, discarded clothes and suitcases, and cartons of popcorn buckets. There was also a wealth of cast-off promotional crap from the golden days of B movies: banners, papier-mâché monsters, cardboard cutouts of Hollywood stars, old movie magazines. Only the last room at the far end of the corridor was different.
As his keychain penlight flashed around the room, Chris’s blood turned to ice. On the far wall, someone had hung a large framed black-and-white photo of a beautiful woman. Gilbert’s mother, perhaps? She didn’t look the least bit like Gilbert. Too dark and thin by half. Beneath the photo, on a card table pushed against the wall, someone had created a grotesque shrine: candles melted into misshapen lumps, a selection of woman’s personal items, including hairbrushes, cosmetics and undergarments, and most disquieting of all, a plate of food. The food was no longer edible. Mold grew on the vegetables and maggots wriggled through what must once have been a chicken.
“Again, we find you poking around where you don’t belong.”
Chris spun about. Gilbert and the purple-haired twin stood at the far end of the corridor.
“If I wasn’t such a trusting soul, I might think you were spying for Mrs. DuCalice,” Gilbert said. “But what possible reason could you have for helping her?”
“No, of course I’m not spying,” Chris replied. “I was looking for things we might use to create a promotional display for your plays. There’s some cool stuff down here. Have you seen the papier-mâchéCreature from the Black Lagoon?”
“I grew up with this crap. It’s worthless,” Gilbert said as he started toward Chris.
“Okay. Good to know.”
“Mr. Chandler, I’ve been meaning to ask…”
“Yes?” Something told Chris he should run, but where? In the narrow corridor he’d never get past the Pillsbury Doughboy.
“The doctor you killed, what was he doing that was so wrong? He might have discovered a cure for cancer, if you hadn’t poked your nose in.”
“You’re right. That’s why I didn’t poke my nose in, not at first.”
“So when did you?”
“When he stole my girlfriend’s corpse.”
Sweat gasped. “He stole your girlfriend’s dead body?”
“Yes, so I had to stop him.”
“Ah, for love!” Sweat clasped his hands to his heart.
“You weren’t trying to be a hero?” Gilbert asked.
“Hell no. That’s why I’m here and not up in Maine, because nobody up there thinks I’m a hero.”
Gilbert stopped directly in front of Chris and stared at him, as if trying to see into his soul. Then Gilbert smiled and said, “We’ve ordered Chinese.”
Chapter 13
Thursday, March 12
Chris arrived back at the cottage on his bike around two in the morning feeling as though he’d been put through a meat grinder. No sleep, a dozen beers, the world’s worst egg rolls, and three falls from the bike along the muddy lane—he was a wreck. “God,” he muttered as he rode up to the house. Rose was there waiting for him.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
“I wanted to know what you found out.”
“Well, apart from the fact that Gilbert and his friends are totally crazy, I did learn the bones are still in the theater somewhere, and Gilbert isn’t planning to ship them before Monday.”
“Wonderful. Well done. You’re my hero!”
“So we have four days to find them and get them back.”
“And do you have a plan?”
“Rose, it’s two-thirty in the morning. I haven’t slept in three days, my stomach feels like I swallowed a bowling ball, and every joint in my body aches!”
“Oh, right. You have a bath, because you really stink, and I’ll prepare something for your stomach.”
Half an hour later, they were seated at the kitchen table sipping cocoa.
“Rose, why are you here?”
“I told you, I wanted to know what you found out.”
“No, not here now. I mean, why are you still here...among the living?”
“What’s brought this on?”
“In the last twenty-four hours, I’ve spied on a bunch of crazy Goths pretending to cut someone’s head open, nearly got a journalist killed, swallowed h
alf the water in a swampy ditch, dumped an unconscious man at the side of a road in the middle of nowhere, and framed him for murder. I guess I’m trying to figure out which side I’m on, the good guys or the bad guys, because right now I’m not sure.”
“And you think I may be one of the bad guys?”
“You said yourself, someone doesn’t want you in Paradise, so that only leaves one option.”
“Okay. Well I think I’m one of the good people, because I’ve always tried to be. The truth is, however, I’m not sure either. When we first realized we were not aging, we thought we were being rewarded for helping move the treasure. Then we thought we were being punished for disturbing Mary’s rest or for stealing her finger. In fact, my husband felt so guilty about stealing the bone, he couldn’t face the others. It’s the reason he went to sea. Then we thought perhaps our longevity was neither a punishment nor a reward. Perhaps we had something special to do, something to accomplish, some great event to witness, or some grand design to explain that only we could sift from the rush of history. But we accomplished nothing remarkable, witnessed no transformative event, and discovered no grand design…just the same interminable struggles for power and wealth, century after century. We cried out to God, ‘If we are to lead, then where? If we are to deliver a message, then what?’ God’s silence was deafening.
“Then we thought, perhaps we ourselves might be the message. We studied our anatomy, our blood, our bones to see if we could find answers to the health issues of mortals, but found nothing out of the ordinary. The best we could come up with was our salve which helps people heal quickly, but it wasn’t remarkable enough to risk drawing attention to ourselves.
“Then we had the idea we might be some sort of convenient plot device, a handy tool for God when He needed to make something happen in the world and didn’t have time to set a more complex train of events in motion. We thought we might be minor characters with major influence, responsible for moving the plot along without attracting attention. Only we couldn’t find anybody whom we’d ever saved for greatness, or monumental event we’d ever helped happen. So then we traced all of our descendants to see if any of them had become noteworthy, and found nothing. Finally, I concluded we’d been a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Yes, like a bad report card a child hides from parents and forgets.”
“Would God do that?”
“Why not?”
“Because we expect our gods to be infallible,” Chris said. “People want their gods to know everything, everything they’ve done in the past, and everything they’ll experience in the future.”
“Not me, I would much prefer a god who makes mistakes, who barely gets by, a god who is given to despair. I read a story once about a god who became so distraught at the antics of his creation that he came to earth, got drunk, and ended up in a ditch. And in another story, God was so disappointed with us he actually dispatched angels to revoke his covenant.
“Think about it. An infallible god would be so horribly evil, putting us through all this pain while keeping us totally in the dark about his true purpose. What kind of a monster would do that? No, I prefer a god who is as confused as we are. Making it up as he—or she—goes along. After all, we were supposedly created in his image, which means with his warts and all.”
“I had a friend who wanted a god with a sense of humor.”
“Me too.”
“So you think you and your friends were a mistake,” Chris asked.
“Yes, I think God must have been ambivalent about what we’d done. On the one hand, we’d performed good works. We’d lived well, treated others with kindness, even helped save the Perfecti treasure. On the other hand, we’d committed evil. We’d disturbed a grave, stolen the bone, and renounced our faith. God doesn’t appreciate people who break faith out of self-interest. He clearly prefers conviction—any conviction—over self-preservation.
“Anyway, I think He didn’t know what to do with us, so He parked us. He left us to our fate; if we could figure out how best to serve others, then He’d let us into Paradise. Otherwise, he’d leave us here, hidden away, an embarrassment because we confused him, and gods aren’t supposed to be confused.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Forceful gusts of wind and rain beat against the windows.
“So, have I convinced you you’re on the right side?” Rose asked.
Chris thought for a moment. “My friend—the one who said she wanted a god with a sense of humor—she said, the only thing she knew for certain was she wanted to be buried beside her husband in the place where they’d spent their lives. That way, if at the end of time, some god summoned her, they’d know where to find her. I fought the devil himself to protect the place where she now rests. So, I guess the right thing to do is to return your friends to the place where they want to be.”
Rose smiled, and whispered, “My hero.”
“Wish you wouldn’t call me that,” Chris said. Rose was the second old lady to call him hero. His eyes teared at the memory of Felicity Holcomb. Felix had called him hero and been killed immediately thereafter.
“Tomorrow, come to my apartment and we’ll devise a plan,” Rose said.
“I have to go back to the theater.”
“Okay, then tomorrow evening for dinner. But now, you need sleep.”
His head began to swim. “Rose, you didn’t put another of your dra...,” and he was out.
* * * *
The phone rang at ten a.m. Chris rolled his head from side to side to shake away remnants of nightmares that kept him up all night, and opened his eyes. He picked up the phone. “Hello.”
“Chris? It’s Gillian.”
“Gillian! What’s happened?”
“I’m at the diner in Lewis. Meet me at the gate.”
“You’re in Lewis? How did you get here? Is Nigel with you?”
“No, I’m alone. I have the Buick. I had to see you.”
“Why? What’s happened?”
“Just meet me at the gate, dammit.”
He splashed water on his face, pulled on some clothes and bicycled to the gate. There he found Gillian pacing back and forth in front of the Buick, ringing her hands and muttering to herself.
“What’s happened?” he asked as he undid the lock and pulled the gate open.
“The priest has refused to see us!”
“The Torajan priest?”
“I’ll explain at the house.”
Seated across from Gillian at the kitchen table, Chris was struck for the umpteenth time by her beauty. She was flushed, obviously furious about something, and looked gorgeous all the same. “Hey, before you tell me what’s happened, can I just say how amazing you are?”
“Oh, Chris, don’t. I love it when you talk like that. But we can’t do anything, so compliments only makes things more difficult.”
“Well actually, we might be able to—”
“No! After Mallory’s last attack, I swore I wasn’t going to do anything to hurt you ever again...and now things are worse!”
“Okay, what’s happened?”
Gillian explained how she’d called the priest in Boston to arrange a time for their visit, but he’d refused to talk to her. According to his wife, he’d had calls from some newspaper reporter who’d rattled him. The last thing the priest wanted was to draw attention to his community, maybe make Torajans and their religious practices the target of newspaper sensationalism. So he’d refused to have anything further to do with Gillian and her friends.
Chris knew immediately what had happened—Jackie Cormier! He explained to Gillian about Jackie’s visit and how she’d seen a video at the detention center of an attack by Mallory on another inmate. He’d then described to Jackie how Mallory’s spirit had become trapped among the living and what they were trying to do about it. He said nothing about Mallory’s attack on Jackie or of her attempt to climb into bed with him, however. He saw no reason why Gillian need ever know.
“So because she’d see
n this video, you told her about Mallory’s father, and his beliefs, and all the walking dead stuff? Was that wise?”
“Well no, obviously not. But I also told her not to investigate any Torajan stuff because we were taking care of it. I asked her to focus instead on...on deflecting attention...from you.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew he’d made another mistake.
“So you’re responsible for this? You’re behind this trash?” Gillian rummaged through her purse.
“What trash?”
She produced a crumpled newspaper story, slammed it down on the table, and slumped back in her chair. From the Bangor Daily Courier, the piece was entitled Meath’s Many Living Victims.
Chris quickly scanned the article. Many families whose loved ones are missing...loved ones lost a second time...no places to grieve...jobs lost at the local funeral home. Then he came to it, the section subtitled, She Only Tried to Help. …blameless neighbor...sweet young girl swept up in the nightmare…innocent crush on the hero of the Bemishstock tragedy...terrible injuries...did nothing to deserve attention...now being harassed and humiliated by insensitive locals.
“Well, it’s not so bad,” Chris said.
“Not so bad? Sweet young girl, innocent crush, did nothing to deserve attention? It makes me seem like some stupid Kewpie doll, like some kind of groupie, a dumb adolescent! Can you imagine how humiliated I was? And then to have the fact I’m being harassed splashed all over Maine? It’s like someone hung a sign around my neck saying, Harass Here. And now you tell me you’re responsible?”
“Oh God, Gillian, that’s not what I asked her to do. I asked her not to write about the Mallory stuff, not until we’ve sorted it out. I said if she really wanted to help, maybe she could take some of the attention off you. I didn’t know you were being harassed until she told me. I thought things at school were okay. I was gutted when she told me what you were going through.”
“Sometimes you seem so wise...then other times...,” Gillian said with a shake of her head, “you seem like this wide-eyed innocent, like a babe in the woods. Whatever made you think a journalist would do what you asked?”
