Chris Grabenstein - The Hanging Hill

“Gosh. That’s too bad. Of course, I can’t tell you what to do…”

“I know. The rules. But Mr. Kimble is in serious trouble!”

“You know, I remember this one time on Broadway, my dressing room door was locked and I couldn’t find my key.”

“Miss Williams, I’d love to hear the story but…”

“So, I used my hatpin. Just jiggled it in the keyhole till I hit the latch and popped open the lock. Of course, I’m not telling you what to do, Zack. You’ll have to figure that out all by yourself.” She winked.

Zack’s eyes darted around the room.

He saw a Styrofoam head wearing an old-fashioned hat. There was a big honking hatpin holding it in place.

“Thanks!” Zack said to the ghost of Kathleen Williams, who, of course, had already vanished.

Zack pulled out the hatpin, hurried back to the door, and started working at the keyhole with his makeshift lock-picking tool. After a few jerks and wiggles, the pin caught hold of something metal. Zack levered it up and felt the pin press against the hidden lock latch.

The closet door popped open.

88

“Zack? We’re invited to the party. Zack?”

Judy poked her head into her stepson’s room. It was nearly six-thirty. Time to get ready for the party with Reginald Grimes.

But Zack wasn’t in his room.

“Zipper?”

The dog was gone, too. Maybe Zack had taken Zipper out for another walk. Judy was worried about Zack. While she was in rehearsal, her husband, Zack’s dad, had left a message on her voice mail. Something about Zack discovering that his mother had once been an actress at the Hanging Hill Playhouse.

Judy had heard how cruel the first Mrs. Jennings had been to her only son. She remembered how shy and withdrawn the boy had been when she’d first started dating his father.

She also knew something Zack’s father didn’t: His son saw ghosts. Not in the metaphorical sense, either. Zack really saw them. Judy was afraid he had run off someplace to hide from the mother who might be trying to haunt him.

She saw Derek Stone heading up the hall.

“Derek?”

For some reason, the boy was wearing a tuxedo.

“Hello, Mrs. Jennings.”

“Derek, have you seen Zack?”

“Yes.”

“Where?”

“Downstairs.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Judy assumed Zack must’ve heard about the last-minute party invitation from the company manager or someone in the cast.

They’d meet up in the lower lobby.

Great.

Now all Judy had to do was find something decent to wear.

And figure out how to keep Susan Potter away from her son.

89

The janitor guzzled down all the water in that twenty-four-ounce sport bottle Zack had grabbed.

Rehydrated, he had the strength to ask Zack a question: “Where’s the blond boy? Derek Stone?”

“I don’t know,” said Zack. “Probably getting ready for the big party.”

“What big party?”

“With the director.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.”

The janitor rubbed his face. “Of course. The full moon! We don’t have much time. Are they going to a restaurant?”

Zack shook his head. “No. Apparently, there’s a banquet hall or something down in the basement. Maybe in that big storage room with the Minotaur statue.”

“Minotaur?”

“You know—a man with the head of a bull?”

“Moloch!”

“No. We think it’s a Minotaur…”

“Moloch!”

90

Reginald Grimes stood in the center of the scenery storage room, staring up at the gleaming brass statue of Moloch.

Grimes was dressed in white tie and tails, a satin-lined cape, and a jeweled purple turban—a costume constructed to be an exact duplicate of his grandfather’s. Hakeem stood beside him, decked out in elegant acolyte robes and his red felt hat. Badir and Jamal had installed a massive stove hood directly above the statue, as well as all the ductwork needed to vent the smoke of their sacrifice directly into the playhouse’s chimney system.

“All is in readiness, Exalted High Priest of Ba’al,” said Hakeem, scraping into a deep bow.

“Excellent,” said Grimes. “Let us proceed upstairs to retrieve the children. You are prepared to deal with their mothers?”

“Yes, Exalted One. The playwright and her child as well.”

“Excellent. Tell me, Hakeem: Where is this portal? This power spot you speak of? Where is it that I shall first welcome my army of demons?”

“Come. I will show you.”

Hakeem led Grimes around the statue, where he saw four ragged posts, about eight feet apart, poking up through the concrete floor like pilings for a dock that had long since rotted away.

“Behold the original foundation for the scaffold on Hangman’s Hill,” said Hakeem. “Feel the floor.”

Grimes touched the ground. It was hot and thrumming.

“This is the spot cursed by the Pequot chieftain Sassakus for what the white men did to his daughter, Princess Nepauduckett,” said Hakeem. “The mighty chief decreed that when the full August moon, the Dog Moon, rose in the sky, so too, in this cursed spot, would the foulest dogs of the demon white race. The white man’s prayers, begging for deliverance from evil, have kept this doorway sealed for centuries with only the most heinous souls being able to seep through its cracks—and then only with the assistance of a powerful necromancer, such as your grandfather.”

“Or me!”

“Yes, Exalted One.”

Grimes worked his hands together in anticipation. “And if I invoke the resurrection ritual of Moloch at the precise moment Sassakus’s Dog Moon rules the night sky …”

“You shall unleash the hounds of hell! All the demons summoned to this place as well as those who gather here every August shall rise up from the dead, return to their bodies, and take on renewed life! You shall be crowned the King of Pandemonium.”

Grimes felt his chest swelling with pride. Even his lame arm felt strong and rippling with purpose.

“You and the mighty Moloch,” Hakeem went on, “shall rule the world from this sacred spot as we, the proud brothers of Hannibal, once ruled the world from our temple in Carthage. All shall tremble in fear before you and Moloch Almighty!”

Grimes’s smile stretched across his face. He ruffled out his cape and swept around to the front of the statue, where he could already feel the heat radiating off the grill situated between the beast’s knees. Badir and Jamal stoked the roiling inferno below the gridiron with shovelfuls of fresh coal.

“Is the Tophet ready?” Grimes cried out, using the Hebrew word he had learned from The Book of Ba’al for the place where the fires burned constantly, where children were sacrificed in the worship of Moloch.

“Yes, Exalted One!”

Despite the searing pain, Grimes forced both arms high above his head. The three Tunisian men dropped to their knees.

“Hear me, mighty Moloch!” Grimes proclaimed. “Soon shall I feed unto you two children in exchange for that which I desire!” He lowered his eyes and spoke to the floor. “Hear me, foul fiends trapped below. These children, pure and true, shall die in this fire so that Moloch might resurrect you!”

It was time to fetch the two children born under the full moon.

Time to slay Derek Stone and Meghan McKenna.

91

“You bring any food, boy?” the janitor asked Zack, sounding more like his old self.

“No. Just the water.”

Kimble braced himself against the closet’s doorjamb and tried to stand up. He didn’t make it very far.

“Weak as a kitten,” he muttered.

“Hang on,” said Zack. “I’ll try to find you something to eat out here with all the props and stuff. If not, I’ll run upstairs to the rehearsal room. There’s always food in there.”