Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

When the children came down here, which Kimble knew they would, because children always did whatever you told them not to do, this sheet would be the first thing they would see.

Actually, what they would see were the wispy images projected on it, a moving picture show that would scare them silly. Children always ran screaming when they encountered the “ghosts” Kimble arranged to have haunting the basement. Usually they cried. Sometimes they had “accidents.” Mostly they quit the show and went home.

“Good riddance,” he muttered. “This theater is no place for children.”

Of course, he himself had never seen a ghost. He just made sure all the kids did.

He pushed apart the dusty costumes hanging on a rolling wardrobe rack and stepped through the opening to where he had set up the antique movie projector, a relic from the days when the Hanging Hill had been a movie theater back in the 1940s.

“Ran those children out, too,” Kimble said, remembering fondly. He had once terrified an entire “Kiddy Matinee” by projecting his spook show on the velvet curtain just before the cartoons started. The popcorn flew that day. Wasn’t a dry seat in the house. The theater almost went out of business, which would have been wonderful, might’ve been torn down for a parking lot.

But some artsy folks with too much time and money decided they wanted to do musicals on the grand old stage and Wilbur Kimble was forced to stay on the job.

He made certain the film sprockets were lined up properly. This was rare footage from the 1930s and needed to be handled very, very carefully. The old celluloid was stiff and brittle.

Kimble flicked up the switch to test out his illusion. The rickety machine chattered to life. The dusty sheet he was using as a movie screen swayed in the slight breeze moving through the basement, and that made the film clip seem all the more like an eerie apparition.

“Clara,” the janitor muttered as he watched the ghostly images dance across the sheet: a young girl and boy, dressed up in matching sailor suits.

They tap-danced.

Then they juggled.

First balls, then bowling pins.

33

“If you don’t like his changes, don’t do them!”

Judy was on the phone with her husband, Zack’s dad.

“You need to protect your intellectual property, sweetheart.” George Jennings was a lawyer.

“Well, I’m willing to take a look at the lyrics. See if I can make them better.”

“You can’t. That song is perfect the way it is!”

Judy smiled.

And then George started singing. “Curiosity helps us see, just how lively life can be….”

Now Judy was simultaneously laughing and cringing. Her husband was a great guy, a sharp lawyer, and a terrific father. He was also tone-deaf. When he sang, it sounded like a dozen different car horns honking in a barn full of bawling sheep. George Jennings had the kind of voice that could close karaoke bars.

“Okay, okay,” said Judy, pulling the phone away from her ear so no permanent nerve damage could be done. “You’re right. It’s perfect.”

“You want me to come down there and sing it to Mr. Grimes? Let him hear just how perfect it is?”

“No, dear.”

Judy wouldn’t change a word, no matter what the director said.

But she saw no need to torture the poor man.

34

“Ugh! Cobwebs!”

“Come on, Derek,” said Meghan. “Don’t be a big baby.”

“I am not being a baby!”

“Are, too.”

“Am not!”

“Whatever.”

Zack and Zipper led the way down the staircase spiraling from the lower lobby outside rehearsal room A into the forbidden basement. Meghan was right behind them. Derek brought up the rear.

“Ugh! Moisture!”

Meghan sighed. “Now what?”

“It’s dripping!”

Zack looked up at the dimly lit ceiling, where thick steel pipes were strapped to the rafters.

“Relax,” said Zack, “it’s just water.”

“Or,” said Meghan, “that could be a sewer line. After all, we are right underneath the men’s lounge.” She leaned into the word so everybody would understand what she really meant: the men’s bathroom.

“Raw sewage? I’m allergic to sewage!” Derek pushed his way past Meghan and Zack, ran down the rest of the stairs, and reached the basement first. “Let’s hurry up and get this over with. I don’t know what you two expect to find down here.”

“We told you,” said Meghan. “Ghosts!”

They were directly underneath the main stage. Faint light leaked through the seams between the trapdoors and the floorboards. The vast space was filled with the lumpy shadows of rolling wardrobe racks, wooden storage boxes, and all kinds of furniture and props from shows done long ago.

“There’s nothing down here but junk,” Derek complained. “Dirty, filthy junk.”

“I think it’s cool,” said Zack. “Like a downstairs attic filled with treasures!”

“I’ll bet we discover something incredible,” said Meghan, twirling a Chinese parasol she’d just found in a bin.

“Well,” said Derek, “all I see are a bunch of old wigs and costumes.” He sneezed. “All of them covered with dust.” He sneezed again. “I’m allergic to dust.”

“What about wool?” Zack asked as they passed a rack crammed with all sorts of coats.

Derek sneezed and scratched his ears. “I’m allergic to just about everything. Wool. Dust. Peanuts. Cats.”

“Guess you’d better quit the show,” said Meghan.

“Ha-ha. Very funny.” Another sneeze.

“I thought you took your allergy medicine,” said Meghan.

“Not all of it! I’d be asleep if I did.”

They reached the rear wall. To the left was a dark corridor that disappeared under a curving archway. To the right, another passageway.

“That’s weird,” said Meghan.

“What?” asked Zack.

“Look at all those gloves hanging on the wall!”

“Wow! They’re all pointing to the right.”

“Oh.” Derek scoffed. “Did a ghost do that?”

“Maybe,” said Meghan.

“Be difficult,” said Zack.

“Oh, really?” whined Derek. “Why’s that?”

“Well, ghosts can’t move physical objects in the real world,” Zack explained.

“Unless,” added Meghan, “they get really, really mad or emotional.”

Derek snorted a laugh. “Did you two go to Ghost University or something?”

Zack smiled. “Sort of.”

Meghan giggled.

“You are both so immature.” Derek ignored the finger-pointing gloves and headed down the passageway to the left. Zack and Meghan followed him.

“Ooh. Neat,” said Meghan. “It’s even darker back here.”

“I see a light up ahead,” said Zack.

“Yes,” said Derek. “It’s some sort of …”

He froze.

He wheezed.

“Did you just swallow a peanut?” asked Meghan. “Derek?”

Derek stammered something inaudible. All Zack heard was a wispy whimper.

“What is it?”

“Ghosts!” Derek screamed. “Ghosts!”

Then he spun around and ran away.

35

Judy took the creaky elevator down to the lobby and marched with great determination to rehearsal room A.

She hoped Reginald Grimes was there. If he wasn’t, she’d march up to his office on the second floor.

She was going to tell him, in no uncertain terms, that she wasn’t going to change a word of the best song in the whole show.

She pushed open the door.

Grimes wasn’t there. Neither was anyone else. The room was empty. Notepads, pencils, and water glasses sat abandoned on the horseshoe of tables where the first read-through of Curiosity Cat had never taken place.

Because , Judy thought, Grimes was too wrapped up in that book he was reading when he should’ve been working on the show!