Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

“Wow,” said Meghan.

“Yeah,” said Zack.

“We have to find out who she was.”

“Who who was?” asked Derek. He was staring at Zack, Meghan, and even Zipper as if all three were deranged.

“The girl,” said Zack.

“What girl?”

“In the buckskin dress?” said Meghan.

“She was just here,” said Zack.

“When?”

“Two seconds ago,” said Meghan.

“Ha-ha. Very funny. Can we go back upstairs now?”

Zack and Meghan looked at each other and realized Derek Stone couldn’t see ghosts!

41

Reginald Grimes sat onstage, slumped in a cushioned chair with snarling skulls carved into its armrests.

He was exhausted. Drained. Necromancy was tough work. It seemed the ritual sapped some of his life force and transferred it to the souls he summoned up from the dead.

“Where did Mr. Murphy go?” Grimes mumbled weakly.

Hakeem indicated the general vicinity of the air. “His spirit is now free to roam the theater, to haunt its dark and dismal places until such time as you command him to return to the nether regions below.”

“He comes and goes at my bidding?”

“Yes, Exalted One.”

“I see. And this makes me rich and powerful beyond my wildest dreams how?”

Hakeem smiled. “All in good time.”

“Bah!” snapped Grimes. “So you keep saying. How ever, I grow weary of your tedious retorts, these tiresome rituals. Not to mention the foul-tasting dog jerky! I want to know what’s locked in the final drawer of that show trunk, and I want to know now!”

Hakeem bowed obsequiously. “Patience is a virtue, Exalted One.”

“Well, I’m tired of being virtuous. I demand to know what you are keeping hidden from me!”

“Soon. First, you must also master the art of necyomancy.”

Grimes squinted. “Nec- yo -mancy?”

“Indeed,” said Hakeem. “It is very similar to nec- ro mancy but much more difficult. In necyomancy, you can call forth demons more wretchedly powerful than Mr. Mad Dog Murphy.”

“Demons?”

“The devil in human disguise. Souls of the purest evil.”

“I see.”

“However,” said Hakeem, holding up a hand in warning, “if necyomancy is done incorrectly, those summoned can quickly turn against the summoner.”

“And tell me: Did my grandfather also provide a list of evil entities to be beckoned forth from the deepest recesses of the underworld?”

“He did.”

Grimes rolled his good hand, gesturing for more information. “Go on. Give me a name.”

“Diamond Mike Butler. The Butcher Thief of Bleecker Street.”

“Is he a true demon?”

“It is why they called him the Butcher. Mr. Butler was a jewel thief who liked to burglarize the homes of the wealthy late at night so he could slay any children he found asleep in their beds. He used a meat cleaver. Chopped off their small heads. When spirits this vile are called back …” Hakeem hesitated.

“What?” Grimes demanded.

“They return more monstrous than when they were alive!”

“Did my grandfather ever dare to summon forth this monstrous soul?”

“Yes. Several times. However, he always sent him back to the underworld very quickly.”

Grimes stood from the chair. “Really? Well, gentlemen, let’s rejoin hands. We don’t want to keep Mr. Butler waiting. I’m sure he’s quite eager to make his triumphant return to the stage!”

42

Judy returned to the fifth floor.

She couldn’t find Reginald Grimes. The company manager said he was tied up in meetings with the producers for the rest of the day.

Fine. It was almost one-thirty and she was getting a hunger headache. If Zack was done playing with Zipper and his new friends, maybe they could go grab a sandwich at the diner across the street.

She entered her room and went to the door connecting her half of the suite with Zack’s.

“Zack? Are you in there? Zack, honey?”

She heard a crash. It sounded like glass shattering.

“Zack? Are you okay?”

No answer.

“Did something break, honey?”

Nothing.

She fumbled with the doorknob and realized it was locked on the other side.

“Hang on, honey.”

Judy went out into the hallway, where she saw a tall, slender woman with curly hair walking away from Zack’s bedroom door.

“Excuse me,” Judy said. The woman kept walking. She said it more loudly: “Excuse me?”

The woman drifted down the hall toward the stairwell.

“Were you just in my son’s room?”

No answer.

Judy hurried to Zack’s door. Jiggled the knob. It was locked.

“Zack? Are you in there? Zack?”

“Hey, Mom.”

Judy whirled around to see Zack and Zipper stepping off the elevator.

“What’s up?” he asked.

Judy turned to see if the woman with the curly hair was still walking down the hall.

She wasn’t.

She had vanished.

43

Wilbur Kimble hurried back to the basement.

The audience would start arriving for the Sunday matinee soon. Time to put things away downstairs.

Earlier, from his hiding place, he had watched the blond boy run away while the other two children discovered his movie projector. The imitation ghosts didn’t seem to frighten those two in the slightest. In fact, the encounter only seemed to make them more curious.

Just like that blasted cat in the new musical.

No, these two children would not be easy to run off. He would need to speak directly with Clara.

He went into a cramped, windowless closet, closed and locked the door. He struck a match and lit a small fluttering candle so the room wouldn’t be completely dark. He placed the candle next to his antique Ouija board on an upturned apple crate.

Kimble creaked down into a folding chair and placed his fingertips atop the Ouija’s planchette—a small heart-shaped piece of wood with a glass eye in its center that acted as a movable indicator so the board could spell out messages from the great beyond. It was the only way he knew to communicate with the dead.

“Weird and mysterious Ouija,” Kimble muttered, “allow me to speak once more with Clara.”

He closed his eyes and waited.

“Clara, can you hear me?” he asked.

He felt the pointer begin to glide, up and to the left, skating across the board to the smiling sun and the word “YES.”

Kimble maneuvered the reader back to the center.

“Clara, have you seen the children who recently arrived here?”

He waited. Felt another tug. Let the heart-shaped pointer move where it wanted to move.

YES .

“Clara,” he whispered, “the moon is nearly full! Do you realize what danger these youngsters bring with them?”

Once again, the reader took his hands to the upper left corner.

YES .

He pulled the pointer back to the center.

“Will you help me scare them off?”

The reader did not move.

“Clara? Will you help me rid this theater of its children?”

Suddenly, the pointer zipped up to the far right corner.

The scowling quarter moon. The Dog Star. Billowing black clouds.

NO .

Kimble pressed down hard, tried to drag the reader back to the center. It wouldn’t budge.

“Please!” He exerted more pressure, made his fingertips tremble with the effort.

The reader remained glued to “NO.”

“Clara? Please!”

“Clara isn’t here, pops.”

Kimble looked up and nearly had a heart attack.

There was a man strapped into an electric chair sitting on the opposite side of the apple crate.

“You shouldn’t play Ouija in the dark, pops. You do, you might start seeing ghosts!” The man tossed back his head and laughed. The air in the cramped closet reeked of hot, rotting beef.