Cold Dead Past (18 page)

Gary leaned back in his chair and exhaled heavily as he rubbed his eyes.  Then he leaned forward again, resting his hands on the inset leather blotter.

Jay scooped up the book, clenching it tightly. Heat came from the flames embossed on each of the points of the pentacle.

The tingling in his palm stopped when he shifted the book to his other hand.  He took a quick glance and could see red marks where he had touched the leather.  The same hot potato sensation occurred in the other hand.

  "Whatever we do," said Jay, "It needs to be done quickly.  Abe said that Frank’s not going to be Frank much longer, whatever that means.  It sounds as if, from what Meg’s told me and from what happened tonight at the station and Tommy's, the transformation he was talking about has started."

"According to Abe, that means that he’s going to start wandering farther from home, looking for more victims wherever he can find them.  We’ll take this book down to the shop so he can have a look-see. Then I think that we should meet in the morning to try and sort things out."

"Okay, but you’d better leave right now.  The sheriff said he was on his way down. I don’t want to explain what I’m doing letting you walk out of here with evidence."

As he and Meg walked down the lonely sidewalk, with a sharp, cold wind to keep them company, Jay wondered just how prepared they were for what lay ahead. The one who was really in danger now was Meg.  He didn't know how he would handle a jealous, angry, beastly thing like what his best friend had become.

All that Jay could think about was the look in Frank’s eyes as he clawed at the ice from below, the blood flowing from his fingertips in little pink whirls like smoke from the tip of a cigarette.  The look that Frank returned as Jay stared into the dark water burned hot with anger.

They were halfway to Meg's house before he realized how tightly he was clutching the book to his chest.  The knuckles of his bare hand were white and the tips of his fingers were stung by the cold. He quickly slipped the book under his arm and took her hand.

"Baby you’re freezing," she said, and took his hand in both of hers and rubbed it.

His fingertips tingled. Jay could feel sharp pinpricks as the circulation returned.  He blurted out, "I’m afraid."

             
                                          CHAPTER 30

Being two in the morning, it took some effort to rouse Abe.  He was in a sour mood.  His wardrobe consisted of a ratty flannel nightshirt and a pair of dirty corduroy slippers.  The first sleepy word out of his mouth as soon as he opened the door was "fuck" spoken like a hard right to the jaw.

Once Jay produced the book, though, Abe was wide awake. His attitude changed markedly. "Come on in, my boy," he said as he pulled it from Jay’s hands. "Please."

Cluttered and dusty in the daylight, the bookstore was a creep show in the dark.  The glow from the doorway to the back room cast odd shadows. It was easy to imagine strange creatures hiding in the nooks and crannies, their fangs and claws at the ready to tear an unsuspecting browser to bloody bits.

Meg gave an audible sigh of relief upon entering the well-lit back room.  Abe’s eyes danced with glee as he sat down and stared at the cover.

"I can’t believe that shit found this.  Did he say where he bought it," he asked.

"Well, he didn’t get a chance to say much of anything," replied Meg.

They explained to Abe the events of the evening. He listened with rapt attention, the book sitting on the table in front of him, his hands occasionally given to rubbing it over and over as if he were a miser with a shiny, new jewel.

When they had finished recounting their tale, Abe smiled and turned to Meg, saying, "My dear, I could kiss you.  The image in my mind of you speaking with that deputy’s head. And then kicking him in the snout on the way out.  Well, that just makes my night.  It was worth it to get up just to hear that."

Then, he began flipping through the pages of the book. The smile on his face turned into a thoughtful scowl.

"This is it, all right," he said. "Technically, it isn’t even supposed to exist.  There are many people who have been dreading this day."

"I tried reading some of it and I couldn’t make head nor tails of it.  What language is that?" asked Jay.

"Sanskrit.  One of the oldest languages known.  It’s the great-great-granddaddy of all the Indo-European languages.  Older than Latin, Greek… All of them."

"Can you read it?" asked Meg.

"My dear," exclaimed Abe, "I speak five different languages and can read seven more.  Sanskrit is just one of them.  Give me some time. I think I’ll be able to find a solution to our problem."   He gave her a haughty smile. Then, she picked up his smugness and threw it back into his face.

"Good, because Jay told Gary we’d be meeting with him in the morning and you’d come up with a way to stop Frank."

Abe was flabbergasted, but he couldn’t let it show.  Maybe he had overplayed his hand as an expert just a bit, but he knew that given enough time, he could crack this nut.

"Give me until noon."

 
It wouldn't be easy, but it was doable.  It just meant going totally without sleep.  Now was not the time to allow the others to know that he was uncertain about their future course of action; afraid of what the consequences would be if they failed.

"There’s something else," Meg said. "Maybe it would be a good idea if you made sure that Jay went with you to talk to Gary.  He’s not exactly the type to swallow this stuff easily and you- well, you’re you."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?!"

Meg just rolled her eyes and gave Jay a knowing look.

"She’s right," he said. "You’re very… How can I say this?  Exuberant.  That’s the word.  When someone disagrees with you, you can be very exuberant in making your case."

"All right, all right," said Abe. "I get it.  I’ll keep my mouth shut until you’re there to mediate."  Then he turned to Meg and, sarcastically, he said, "Does that meet with your approval, then?"

Reassured, Jay and Meg took their leave.  The walk back to Meg’s house was quiet, the two of them just holding hands.  For Jay, that was a good thing.  His thoughts were elsewhere.  That night, in her bed, he could never manage to get warm enough, even cuddled in her arms.

                                                        CHAPTER 31

Jay was late waking up.  Meg practically had to dress him and throw him out the door.  When he arrived at the sheriff’s station, what he had feared the most had happened.  Abe was early. He was seated in Gary’s office drinking from a Styrofoam cup of coffee with the book lying on the desk in front of him. It was filled with little slips of paper marking various pages.

Abe was just handing back an official-looking sheet of paper when Jay reached the doorway.  Gary slipped the report back into a thick folder that was open on his desk blotter.

"Why don’t you take off your coat and stay a while?"  He motioned Jay to the seat next to Abe. "Your friend here tells me that he’s figured out how to stop Frank."

Jay gave Abe a sour look as he took his seat.  "Oh, has he now?"

Abe threw up his hands and gave Jay a self-satisfied grin.  "I think so."

 
From somewhere near the office came the sound of a pickaxe impacting concrete.  Gary shook his head.

"Listen, before we go any further, I want the two of you to listen up.  As far as the sheriff is concerned, I’m the man.

"After he saw that mess in the cell block, he pretty much lost it.  That means my balls are in the disposal and someone’s about to throw the switch."

He looked straight at Jay as he poked his finger into the thick pile of papers in front of him.

"This is all the evidence relating to the killings up until last night.  I’m going to need another folder this size by the time we’re done with yesterday's party.  I don’t care if I have to kiss a pig if it gets me the hell out from under this mess.  Savvy?"

Jay shifted uncomfortably in his chair while Abe nodded enthusiastically, which made Jay even more on edge.

"I don’t know if you want the kind of publicity that Abe’s help might generate.  We… Meg and I already talked to him last night.  I thought we’d agreed that he’d work out what needed to be done and we… I would be the public face of this thing in dealing with you and the department."

Jay didn't like the fact that Abe had forced his way to the forefront of the operation. He was letting himself be childish and driven by testosterone, but wasn't this all about his relationship with Frank, anyway?

"Publicity," exclaimed Gary. "Hell, I’ve got that coming out my ass already."

Jay was only half-listening to the conversation now.  Maybe childish behavior was the key to the whole thing, after all. Frank was still basically a twelve-year-old, with the desires and temperament of an adolescent.

Gary went on. "I’ve already got people from halfway across the country calling me; everyone from psychics to psychotics offering me their services as paid consultants.  The TV news already picked up on that, so I don’t think that this should come as much of a surprise."

He looked straight at Abe.

"I just don’t want anyone running up and down the sidewalks of Main Street carrying a sign, understand?" Abe's hand went to his chest as if he had been shot.

Abe didn't like being handled like he was a common quack or charlatan. He just tilted his head and looked to the side, away from Gary's gaze, and nodded his assent.  How dare they assume that he wouldn't work in anything but a professional manner?

There was an awkward silence for a moment. Then Abe cleared his throat, picked up the book, and began to flip through it.  He grunted as his eyes settled on a page marked by an orange sticky note.

He gathered himself up and spoke in a loud, firm, even voice. "This is not mumbo jumbo or hocus pocus.  This is something serious we’re dealing with."

To Jay, his voice was thunderous, filled with rumbling, pregnant undertones - purposeful.  The purpose was to parry Gary's thrust and to make him feel like a simpleton. It was all part of the macho game that Jay didn't play.

It occurred to him that it was a game being played by Frank, too. The point of it was that he was trying to remold life in Haddonfield so that things returned to the way they were before he died.  If he brought it up now, though, it would be lost in the testosterone-filled atmosphere of Gary's office.

Abe continued, on a roll in a milieu that suited his particular skills and which found Gary in deep water without a life vest.

"You know all the stories about vampires, the walking dead, zombies, ghouls?"  There was anticipation and relish in his voice which caused Gary to shift uncomfortably in his chair.

"Well," he went on, "this spell that Gene used is the granddaddy of all that.  It’s pre-Christian stuff from the Far East and it’s one of the reasons all the copies of this book were destroyed in the first place.  Well, supposed to have been destroyed."

"Why?" asked Gary.

Abe’s breathing became heavier. He began to speak more rapidly, his speech clipped. "Because the idiots ran into the same problem that we have.  They didn’t know how to shut it off once they used it."

"Somebody must have come up with something," interjected Jay. "I mean, we’d be hip deep in deranged spirits."

"Unfortunately," replied Abe, "Their solution, if they found one, died with them.  All I’ve had to work with were some later texts with accounts of similar events.  It’s a stab in the dark at best and there aren’t any guarantees that anything I’ve come up with will work."

"What kind of help do you need?" asked Gary.

Abe’s eyes shifted to the ceiling for a moment, as if he were thinking, but Jay knew better.  Abe wouldn’t have shown up without at least some idea of a course of action.  This dissembling was all part of an act, a stage show that would make any magician proud.

His eyes shifted back down and locked in right on Gary as he said, "The first thing that I need is access to the place where he died.  It will hold a lot of power over him, even now.  A kind of psychic impression, if you will.  It will help in the planning if I can look it over."

He rose from his seat and walked over to a large wall map of the township hanging behind the desk.  He got so close that the tip of his nose practically touched it, running his index finger slowly from a point on the map which approximated the location of Gene’s house, to the location of Jack Hauser’s farm, right on into town to Tommy Lazaro’s house.

Without turning around, he said, with a magisterial air, "I think that if you mark the sites of the murders, you’re going to find that they’re all along lines leading to that place.  That’s his home base."

Jay was skeptical about the simplicity of the idea. "So we’ll find him hiding in a coffin up there?"

Abe turned on him, giving him the kind of look that a teacher would give a dumb student who needed to be led by the hand to an obvious conclusion.

"No, it’s not that simple.  If it were, this could have been over days ago.  We have to call him.  Like in a seance."

Gary leaned back in his chair, out of the line of fire between the two of them. "Well, I can see no problem with getting you out there this afternoon.  I don’t think I really want to get out there too late, though.  I mean this could be kind of dangerous, couldn’t it?  I’ve never dealt with spooks before."

Abe returned to his seat in front of the desk, lips pursed, brow wrinkled. "I think that it would be safe to assume that anyone involved would be better off considering a change of address if this doesn’t work.  That might save them." And then, sotto voce and with a drop of two octaves in pitch,"At least for a while."

Turning to Jay, he continued, "Jay, I need you to pick up a few things in town while we’re gone."

Abe dug around rather officiously in one of his pants pockets, pulling a wad of papers and change out of one of them and dumping it out onto the desk.

"Nope."

Rummaging around in the other pocket of his slacks produced a similar wad, this time of cash, mostly ones.

"I know I had it here," he said.

Finally, digging into one of the pockets of his parka, which he had slung over the back of his chair, Abe's fingers found what he was searching for.  When he withdrew his hand from the pocket, it held a neatly folded sheet of unlined bond paper, which he slowly opened on the desk in front of him, taking his time to smooth it out so that it sat flat on the surface, before handing it to Jay.

"Here’s the list.  Follow it to the letter."

Jay scanned through the list with a frown on his face.

"I don’t know where I would find some of this stuff around here."  Turning to Gary he asked, "A spear gun?  Who would use that sort of thing around here?"

"I know a few people who dive," he replied. "I’ll give you some phone numbers.  You won’t have any trouble with them if you say you’re doing this to help me out."

Abe slipped back the sleeve on his shirt to reveal a gold Rolex.

"I suggest that we meet back here at five-thirty.  That will give us the time to complete our assignments." He nodded at Gary.  "I agree with you on that point.  I don’t want to get caught out after dark.  He may already know what we’re up to and I don’t want to run into him out in the open without being prepared."