Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

“Who are you?”

“Mad Dog Murphy. I kill people.”

Kimble sprang for the door. Tried to slide his key into the lock. His hands were trembling.

“Drop it!” Mad Dog’s fetid breath came at Kimble like a gust of wind blasting up from a sewer grate. It blew out the flickering candle.

That startled Kimble, made him flinch, made him drop his key.

He heard it clink against something metal, then rattle and clank its way down a pipe.

He had dropped the key into a floor drain. He was trapped inside an unlit closet.

“Give it up, old-timer,” said the man in the chair as bursts of blindingly white light flared up from his metal skullcap. “You can’t talk to Clara! Not now, not never again!” Another laugh. More stench. “What’s that old saying? When one door closes, another door opens? Too bad it ain’t gonna be that closet door. It’s gonna be ours! The doorway of the damned is all set to swing wide open, pops! Tomorrow night! Tomorrow night!”

44

Zack found his room key and opened the door.

“I heard something fall over here,” said Judy. “A crash.”

“Yep.” Zack pointed to the shards of shattered glass near his chest of drawers. “I packed a picture. Guess it must’ve fallen off the dresser.”

Judy bent down and picked up the photograph underneath the sheet of splintered glass. It was a snapshot of the new Jennings family: Judy, George, Zack, and Zipper.

“Well,” said Judy, “the photograph isn’t damaged. We can always buy a new frame.”

“Wonder how come it fell.”

“Me too,” said Judy, standing up. “Did you put it near the edge?”

“Nope. I put it on top, right there in the middle.”

“And the window’s closed, so a breeze didn’t knock it over.”

“Judy?”

“Yes, Zack?”

“I think we might have ghosts again.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I saw some stuff downstairs in the basement.”

“You went where the janitor told you not to?”

“Sorry.”

Judy smiled. “I would’ve done the same thing.”

“Meghan McKenna told me every theater she’s ever worked in was haunted. Probably because there’s so many emotions stirred up inside ’em. Plus, you know actors. If they have a good part, they never want to leave the stage.”

“Meghan might be right. I just saw a very strange lady walking down the hall. Actually, it looked like she was gliding down the hall.”

“You know, Mom, you’re one of the few adults who can see ghosts during the day.”

“Lucky me. I think she may have come in here, even though both doors were locked.”

“Probably oozed her way in.”

“Then she walked out—right through the wall.”

“Was she juggling?” Zack asked.

“No. No juggling. Just, you know, silently drifting.”

“One of the ghosts Meghan and I met juggles.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Mostly in the stairwell.”

“I see.”

“Another one is a Pilgrim. He hangs himself. Then there’s the actress who comes onstage for her standing ovation, and the Shakespearean actor with the sword, and the sad Indian girl…”

“You and Meghan McKenna have seen that many ghosts?”

“Well, she hasn’t seen the Pilgrim guy or the actress taking her bows.”

“But Meghan sees ghosts? Like we do?”

“Yep. But Derek doesn’t.”

They finished picking up the broken glass and tossed the pieces into a wicker trash basket.

“So, do you think it was a ghost lady who knocked the picture frame off the dresser?”

“I don’t know, Zack. The ghosts back in North Chester couldn’t really do anything, remember?”

“True. But I’ve read that if they concentrate all their energy, if they get, let’s say, really mad or incredibly sad, they can rattle chains and push stuff around.”

“You’ve been reading books about ghosts?”

“Sure. After that night in the crossroads, haven’t you?”

“Yeah. About a dozen. Everything the library had.” Judy stared at the door. “Wow. I wonder who she was.”

“Just another actress who never heard her cue to exit. So, you hungry?”

“Starving.”

“I told Meghan that we might join her and her mother across the street at the diner.”

“Great.” Judy remembered something else from back at the crossroads. “Your new friend Meghan’s not a ghost, is she?”

“Nah. I saw her eat a hunk out of a doughnut this morning.”

“Good.”

45

He hears the ancient command: Ego sum te peto et videre queo .

“I seek you and demand to see you.”

He hears his name being called.

“I seek you, Michael Butler, and demand to see you.”

He zooms up through the gloom. Races toward the light.

He sees the new necromancer. Faintly. Dimly. As if he were looking at the man through a gauzy veil.

“You will find me to be a stern but benevolent master, Mr. Butler!” the sorcerer declares. “You may remain in this realm until four a.m. Then you must return below and await further instructions! Do you understand?”

He nods.

“Excellent!” the new master decrees. “Soon I will send you out to do my bidding!”

Fascinating.

Maybe this new necromancer intends to give him back his body.

Maybe this time he will be fully restored to life.

Maybe he will once again be able to do all the things he used to do!

Maybe he will be able to kill again.

46

Judy and Zack sat with Meghan and her mother at a diner table with chrome legs and a speckled top.

“You’re Meghan McKenna!” said a fan about thirteen years old, trembling near their table, flapping a napkin and a pen.

Meghan smiled. “Hi. Would you like an autograph?”

“Yes! Ohmigoodness!” The fan had just recognized Judy, too. “You’re Judy Magruder! I’ve read all your books!”

Judy’s turn to smile. “Do you have another napkin?”

“Here,” said Mrs. McKenna. “You can use mine. No body ever asks for the mother’s autograph.”

“Or the stepson’s,” said Zack.

“Guess we’re just not very interesting, hunh?”

“True. But we do get to eat first!”

After Judy had signed about a dozen napkins (to Meghan’s fifty), she watched Zack and Meghan devour their late lunch, made even later by the flurry of fans that descended on their table once word hit the street that Meghan McKenna was “inside eating!” Both kids wolfed down hamburgers and french fries from tissue-lined baskets and sucked hard on extraordinarily thick chocolate milk shakes. The talented young movie star had quite an appetite; Judy was confident she wasn’t a ghost.

“So,” Judy said to Mrs. McKenna, “is this your first trip to Connecticut?”

“No. Meghan did a movie here once. Something about a horse.”

“Fredericka the Faithful Filly,” said Meghan.

“Don’t talk with you mouth full of food, honey.”

“Sorry.”

“Your daughter’s a terrific actress,” said Judy. “I wasn’t surprised when she was nominated for an Oscar.”

Mrs. McKenna shrugged. “She’s having fun. As soon as it isn’t fun …”

“We’re done!” said Meghan, dabbing at her lips with a napkin.

“Meghan has a gift,” said Mrs. McKenna. “However, I refuse to become a stage mother, making my kid miserable by dragging her off to auditions when she’d rather be home playing soccer in the mud. I will not live vicariously through my daughter’s triumphs.”

“What’s ‘vicariously’?” asked Zack.

Meghan raised her hand and answered: “Vicariously: Experienced through another person, rather than firsthand.”

“Very good,” said Mrs. McKenna. “I’m glad to see you studied your vocabulary words. However, we still have math homework to do tonight. Science, too.”