Chris Grabenstein - The Black Heart Crypt

“Where isSquire Stephen Snertz?” Azalea heard the masked man snarl at the crowd outside the hardware store.

In the mob were a bunch of TV reporters with microphones and cameras. They swung around to aim their gear at the shaved-head goon who had harassed Norman Ickes on Halloween night—the dude who had pulled the plug on all the pumpkins.

In the distance, Azalea could hear the wail of police sirens.

“What is going on?” the masked man whispered tensely. “What is making that high-pitched squeal? Why are all these townsfolk idling about? I am Jack the Lantern. I lurk in the shadows, where none can find me.…”

“Sorry, sir,” said Azalea. “Somebody must’ve alerted the authorities.”

“The king’s soldiers are coming?”

“Uh, no. The police.”

The masked man pulled her closer to his chest.

Great . To shoot him, the cops would have to try to miss her.

“Where is Stephen Snertz?” the guy who called himself Jack shouted again. This time, he brandished a new weapon: a very modern, very lethal-looking pistol.

Azalea was eager to hurry things along.

“That’s him. The bald dude with the chin goatee.”

Stephen Snertz brought his hand up to his chin, trying to hide his facial hair.

“Sir Snertz,” said the kidnapper, “know that I hold your scion as my hostage!”

“M-m-my w-w-what?” said Snertz, who was trembling pretty bad and looked like he might wet himself.

“He means your nephew,” said Azalea. “Kurt? He’s on the bus.”

Stephen Snertz sort of squirmed and snorted some snot up his schnozz before he said, “So?”

“We two must come to terms,” said the man in the mask.

“About w-w-what?”

“Young Kurt’s ransom!”

“R-r-ransom? What are you talking about, Norman?”

“My name is Jack the Lantern!”

Snertz put a hand on his hip and tried to look tough.

“Really? I thought it was Crazy Izzy Ickleby.”

“That was yesterday. This is today.”

“Man,” Snertz chortled, “you are nuttier than all the pecan pies in Georgia!”

Azalea heard a pistol hammer cock back right next to her ear.

“Hey! Th-th-that’s my pistol!” said Snertz.

“Indeed it is!” said the masked man. Then he started mumbling to himself. “No, Norman. Not yet.” He cleared his throat and loudly addressed Snertz again: “If, sir, you do not meet my demands and present me with twenty pounds of solid gold bullion within the hour, I shall be forced to sell young Master Snertz to certain ship captains I know of in these parts.”

Azalea raised an eyebrow. Pumpkin Head was definitely living in the past. There hadn’t been any ship captains living in North Chester since the nineteenth century.

“Drop your weapons!” cried a brusque voice through a bullhorn.

Azalea looked left. Sheriff Hargrove and six of his deputies had their guns up and aimed at Pumpkin Head, which meant they were also, more or less, aimed at her.

“Is thedoor locked?” asked Judy, studying the base of the clock tower.

“No,” said Zack. “Somebody busted it open.”

“Probably Norman,” said Malik. “He’s the top lock picker in our puzzle club.”

“Hurry, guys,” said Judy. “Find the stone. Toss it in Aunt Ginny’s bag with the rest of the junk.”

Zack grabbed the carpetbag from Malik in the backseat.

“I’ll see what’s going on with the school bus. When you find the black heart, use the signal mirror. Flash it at me from down here in the doorway,” said Judy.

“We will,” said Zack, yanking up his door handle.

“I’ll call Hannah and Sophie; they have Aunt Ginny’s cell phone.”

“But wait—they don’t have a car.”

“They can take a taxi.”

Zack nodded. He had seen some waiting in the hospital parking lot.

“Okay. Go. And, Malik?” Judy said.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Set a new world record tearing it apart, okay?”

“Will do, Mrs. Jennings!”

“Come on!” said Zack.

He, Malik, and Zipper headed into the clock tower while Judy jogged across the street and up the block to the bus.

The crowdgrew larger behind the hastily erected police barriers on Main Street.

Judy saw Scot Smith, the principal of the middle school; Sheriff Ben Hargrove and half the North Chester Police Department; Mr. Ickes and the gum-cracking hardware store employee from TV, Stephen Snertz; not to mention all sorts of TV camera crews, which kept piling out of vans with satellite dishes on their roofs.

Jack the Lantern was back on the bus with Azalea and the other schoolchildren, several of whom Judy could hear sobbing through the windows.

A police officer carefully tried to approach the horse and got a nasty kick for his trouble.

“He has guns!” Judy heard someone say behind her.

“Is it really Norman Ickes?” asked another.

“What’s with that mask? He looks like a jack-o’-lantern.”

“You mean a jackass!” shouted Stephen Snertz very bravely, because the police had their weapons trained toward the bus. Snertz stood with a small group in front of the hardware store. “Who does he think he is, anyway? Saying he wants me to ransom my stupid nephew?” Now he gave Mr. Ickes, Norman’s father, a quick shove. “I told you: Your son is nuttier than squirrel poop!”

Judy pulled out her cell phone and hit the speed dial number she had programmed to ring Aunt Ginny’s cell phone.

“Yes? Hello?”

“Aunt Sophie, the dybbuk is here on Main Street. He’s hijacked a busload of children!”

“Jack the Lantern strikes again, eh?”

“We three are needed. Immediately, if not sooner.”

“Has Zack found the black heart stone?”

“Not yet. But he will.”

“Wonderful. Ginny is in the recovery room. Hannah and I are on our way. She’s outside, organizing transportation. It’s time we sent the first and last of these Ickleby demons straight home to hell!”

After quicklysniffing the ground floor of the clock tower, Zipper charged up the spiral staircase.

Cheesy feet.

He smelled what he had smelled on Halloween night.

Every step smelled like cheesy feet.

Senses fully engaged, the dog zipped up five stories, round and round, to the top of the clock tower.

Zack and Malik were huffing and puffing behind him.

The two boys were breathing hard through their mouths.

That meant they weren’t using their snouts so they didn’t have to smell the stinky sock odor that oozed out of the hardware-store man’s shoes with every step he took.

That was a good thing.

Very good.

Because smelling this much funky foot cheese was a job best fit for a dog!

Charging upthe spiral staircase after Zipper, Zack and Malik finally entered the clockwork room, a chamber on the fifth floor with a ceiling at least fifteen feet tall.

One whole wall was the back side of the massive clock face. Now that they were inside, Zack could see three or four places where chunks of the milky white glass had been broken out. Dusty shafts of sunlight shot through the holes, casting bright circles on the opposite wall.