The Hanging Hill (11 page)

47

Right after lunch, Zack and Judy went with Meghan and her mom to the three p.m. Sunday matinee of
Bats in Her Belfry
.

Meghan and Judy had to sign a bunch more autographs before they could sit down.

Zack and Mrs. McKenna did not.

Zack thought the show was pretty neat. Dracula made an extremely cool entrance—floating down through a huge window in his castle. Since it was a musical
comedy
, the window wasn’t open.

The renowned vampire hunter Van Helsing attempted to expose the smooth and debonair count by inviting him to a big banquet where all they served was spaghetti in garlic sauce and garlic bread. One neat scene showed Dracula getting locked in his coffin, which was then chained inside a concrete crypt like in a magic show. Some townspeople turned the box around and around and it didn’t look like there was any way for the actor to escape through trapdoors in the floor, because the crypt was on an elevated platform, but when the vampire hunters undid the chains, all they found inside the tomb was a single dead rose.

In the second act, the lady playing Lucy, one of the women falling in love with Dracula, started singing that “Bitten and Smitten” song Judy had sung in the car.

She wasn’t alone.

Every move she made and every note she sang was mirrored by a second woman wearing a slightly different costume and wig. They were only inches apart and moving in complete sync across the stage—like those swimmers at the Olympics. Zack thought this was hilarious.

Except he realized: Nobody in the audience was laughing.

Maybe because they couldn’t see the Lucy double.

He turned to Meghan on his right.

“Yep,” she whispered. “It’s a ghost.”

He turned to Judy on his left.

“It’s Kathleen Williams,” she whispered. “From the original cast! She’s really good, isn’t she?”

Yeah
, Zack thought.
Especially for a dead person
.

48

After summoning Murphy, Butler, and several other deceased criminal masterminds, Grimes and the Tunisians had taken a four-hour break from conjuring demons, vacating the stage just before the Sunday-afternoon performance of
Bats in Her Belfry
.

Immediately after the matinee, however, when the audience was gone, the lobby was empty, and the doors were once again barred, Reginald Grimes returned to center stage to form a necromancy circle with the three other men.

“Who’s next?” he asked Hakeem without much enthusiasm.

“Lilly Pruett.”

The name sounded familiar. A distant childhood memory. Something to do with girls skipping rope.

His mind was wandering. Grimes was exhausted. Dead tired. He couldn’t remember half of the names of the spirits he had summoned up from the underworld.

“She was originally summoned by the professor,” Hakeem explained. “Now she must answer to you!”

“How much more of this must I endure before you unlock the trunk’s final compartment?”

Hakeem unfurled a long scroll filled with names. “Fortunately, a few of the spirits your grandfather was familiar with still reside here in the theater. William Bampfield …”

“Bampfield? Who’s he?”

“An early settler. A Pilgrim, I believe you call them. He stole his neighbor’s cattle, killed his wife and two daughters. Claimed the devil told him to do it. Went to the gallows.”

“Wonderful,” Grimes said sarcastically. “And what, pray tell, do I want with him?”

“Mr. Bampfield should prove most eager to steal and kill again.”

“So?”

“He’d be delighted to do so for
you
. To kill, to rob, to pillage, plunder, pilfer, ransack, and loot. So would they all. These evil spirits will do anything you ask of them. They simply need a good director to tell them where to go and what to do.”

“Wait a minute,” said Grimes. “You’re telling me these ghosts can actually rob banks, steal diamonds, forge checks, embezzle funds, make me rich beyond my wildest dreams and kill anyone who tries to stop us?”

“Yes. Not now. But soon.”

“Bah! You keep saying that. ‘Soon! Soon!’ How soon?”

“Tomorrow. When the moon is full. When the sacred ceremony is complete.”

“What ceremony?”

“The one you will perform with the two children!”

“Really? And, tell me, Hakeem: What’s in all this for you?”

Hakeem smiled. “Enough gold and treasure to restore Carthage to its full and rightful glory! It is all we brothers of Hannibal have ever dreamed of for over two thousand years! You, oh high priest of Ba’al, you shall make our dreams at long last come true!”

49

Zack had taken Zipper out for a walk right before he and Judy had called it a night and gone to bed—Judy to her room, Zack and Zipper to his.

Now Zipper was nudging Zack with his snout.

Apparently, the dog needed to go out again.

“Mmmfff.” Zack buried his head under his pillow.

Zipper kept nuzzling, burrowing into the blankets, and prying the pillow away from Zack’s face so he could lick it.

“What time is it?” Zack mumbled.

Rubbing his eyes and sitting up, Zack found his watch on the bedside table.

3:55 a.m.

Zipper nose-nudged him, poked him in the ribs.

“Okay, Zip. I get it.”

Too bad they weren’t at home, where Zack could just open the back door and let Zip out into the yard to do his business. Here in Chatham, if Zipper had to take another pee, Zack had to walk him down five floors to the lobby.

Zack put on his glasses. Slipped on his bathrobe and sneakers. He didn’t bother tying up the laces.

“Come on, Zip.” Yawning, he snapped the leash onto the dog’s collar.

They headed out the door, moved down the hallway past Judy’s room. Zack shuffled while Zipper padded. They made their way to the elevator. Zack pressed the call button, heard its motor whir.

“At least the elevator’s running,” Zack said through another jaw-stretcher of a yawn.

Zipper wagged his tail and smiled up at him: a dog’s way of saying “sorry to wake you up, pal” and “thanks for taking me out.”

“No problem-o,” said Zack, bending down to scratch Zipper behind the ears. “Just hold it until we get outside, okay?” Zack definitely did not want to deal with any grief from that scraggly old janitor if Zipper had an accident.

The elevator squealed to a stop. Zack slid open the accordion cage door.

Someone was inside. Weeping.

“Are you a demon?” she asked.

50

The Native. American girl was standing inside the elevator.

She was still sobbing.

“The corn is ours!” she blubbered. “How can we steal what is ours?”

Suddenly, Zack heard a tremendous whoosh.

Someone else shot up the elevator shaft: Streaming through the floor of the car was a blast of dust that materialized into a person who clutched a sparkling necklace in one hand and brandished a bloody meat cleaver in the other.

“Silence, little girl, or I promise: I shall give you something to cry about!”

The girl wailed louder.

“Silence, I said!”

The new ghost was dressed in a black top hat and a Dracula-style cape. Blood was spattered all over his white shirt and waistcoat. Blood was caked on the blade of his cleaver.

Zipper whimpered.

Zack wished he had taken the time to tie his shoelaces; it would’ve made running away easier.

“My time is nearly up!” Cleaver Man cried. “But I shall return! Oh, yes—I shall return!” He disappeared.

The girl stopped crying.

Zack heard that trapdoor sound again.

The Indian girl fell halfway through the solid floor, then stopped with a jerk. Her head snapped sideways. She gacked and a bloated black tongue popped out of her mouth.

“Come on, Zip!”

Zack scooped up his dog and bolted down the hall to the stairwell.

Zipper still had to pee.

That meant Zack still had to face whoever or whatever else might be lurking in the shadows on the five flights of steps they would need to descend before they reached the lobby.

He just hoped whomever they bumped into wouldn’t be as scary as the girl swinging from an invisible noose back in the elevator.

Or the Jack the Ripper look-alike who popped in with his jewelry and bloody butcher blade.

51

Zack was whistling.

He figured that if it worked when walking past graveyards, it might work in haunted stairwells, too.

“Five more floors to go,” he whispered tensely to Zipper.

The stairwell was windowless and nearly dark, illuminated only by the soft red glow of Exit signs on every landing. Zack kept one hand on the cold handrail, used it to feel his way down the steps; his other arm was wrapped snugly around Zipper.

He heard a
tick-tick-tick
.

Something was clicking. He stopped. The sound stopped, too.

Juggler Girl
, he thought.
Plastic balls!

Zipper squirmed in his arms. Zack could see that pained sorry-but-I-really-have-to-pee look in his eyes.

“Okay. Hang on.”

He headed down the steps again. Faster.

The
tick-tick-tick
started up again. Faster. Zack figured the girl was spinning her balls like crazy, getting warmed up to attack.

He rounded the third-floor landing.

Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick
.

What if she was juggling knives with plastic handles? Magician’s knives!

Tick-tick-tick
.

What if, defying all the rules, her ghostly knives could actually hurt a human and a dog?

Zack stopped.

So did the ticking.

He took another step.

Heard one tick.

He stepped down.

Tick!

He looked at his shoes. The loose shoelaces had plastic tips that slapped against the stairs every time he took a step.

Next time Zipper had to go outside in the middle of the night, Zack was definitely tying his shoes first!

They made, it outside.

“Okay, boy.”

Zack unclipped the leash and Zipper raced across the porch, down the wide center steps, and into the landscaped lawn, where he made a beeline for the nearest tree and raised his leg.

“Probably better if he did that at the curb, don’t you think, lad?”

Zack didn’t want to turn around, but he did.

A roly-poly man chomping a cigar stood near the theater’s front door. He was accompanied by two giggly girls who sort of looked like Santa’s elves at the mall, only naughtier—with short skirts, long legs, and jazzy Robin Hood hats.

“I’m joshing,” the jolly man said, pulling the cigar stub out of his mouth so he could let loose with a rumbling belly laugh. “Welcome to the Hanging Hill Playhouse, Zack! Your dog may piddle wherever he pleases. After all, you are the demon slayer!”

52

Zack crept backward down the porch steps, careful not to trip on his loose shoelaces.

The jolly man and his bubbly-but-dead girlfriends drifted forward and Zack remembered what Mrs. McKenna had said during lunch: Justus Willowmeier III “was seldom seen without a cigar in his mouth and a pretty woman on each arm.”

Zipper came running over to join Zack in a circular patch of grass at the front of the building. Dark clouds raced across the starry sky, blotting out a moon that was almost full.

“Enjoying your stay, Zack?” Mr. Willowmeier asked from his perch up on the porch. The two showgirls batted their spidery eyelashes and smiled at him with plump, painted lips. Zack figured their lipstick must have been ruby red, but in this light it looked jet-black.

“Having fun in my house, lad?” Willowmeier hooked his thumbs into his vest. Bounced up on his heels. Waited again for a reply.

Zack nodded. Oh, yeah. He was having a blast.

“Attaboy. We were all quite delighted to hear you had finally arrived!”

“You’re our hero!” one of the girls cooed.

“Um, I think you have the wrong guy.”

“Nonsense. We have heard all about your courageous exploits, how you dealt with that nasty fellow at the crossroads. Sent him packing, eh?”

“Well, yeah … but…”

“Zachary,” said Mr. Willowmeier. “I have a proposition to make. I would like to cast you in a leading role, here at my theater!”

“Why me?”

“You’re special!”

“So’s Meghan. She sees ghosts, too.”

Mr. Willowmeier frowned for a second. “We know.” Then he smiled and his face became a jolly pumpkin head again. “But, well, Miss McKenna’s quite busy. The show must go on and all that. However, it may not go on at all if
you
do not do what needs to be done.”

“Personally, we can’t do much,” squealed the other showgirl. “Except go to parties. Parties are fun.”

“Thank you, Tina,” Mr. Willowmeier said patiently. “Zack, here then is my predicament. My careless grandfather erected his tavern on top of what had previously been Hangman’s Hill. Never a very bright idea, eh? But, let’s be fair. He negotiated a marvelous deal on the land.”

“It was dirt cheap,” said the showgirl on his left. “On account of it being cursed by that Indian chief and all.”

“Did the chief have a daughter?” Zack asked.

“Indeed,” said Willowmeier. “Princess Nepauduckett. She was the first to climb up the Hanging Hill scaffold to the gallows. Back in 1639, I believe. Gross miscarriage of justice. Accused of crimes she did not commit. Corn thievery, which, I gather, was considered a capital offense in those days.”

“She’s still here,” said Zack.

“We know. For years, we have lived here with her and …
the others
. Maintaining a fragile equilibrium. Now, however, some rather greedy mortals have arrived. They mean to upset that delicate balance and evict us from our home. That is why we are all so thrilled you’re here, Demon Slayer!”

“Huzzah!” shouted a chorus of voices from somewhere up above.

Zack dared to look.

In the glowing windows of the second floor, he saw a whole gallery of ghosts. A chorus line of showgirls wearing colorful headdresses; two men in baggy striped pants, holding cream pies; a rotund woman in a Viking helmet, clutching a spear; a stagehand in a hat and suspenders, lighting sparklers and tossing them up to Juggler Girl, who stood balanced on one toe atop the tip of an ornate lightning rod, twirling the glittering fireworks in a dizzying circle above her head.

“Wow!” said Zack. “How many of you are there?”

“Quite a few!” said Mr. Willowmeier, rumbling up another belly laugh. “Anyone who ever traipsed across the boards or worked here behind the scenes, anyone who found their joy in the limelight, their happiness in the roar of the crowd, all are welcome to return!”

“Be not afraid of greatness, lad!” The swashbuckling Shakespearean actor Zack and Meghan had seen in the basement pounced to the ground in front of Zack, sheathed his sword, and propped his fists heroically against his hips. “Remember: ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em’”

“Zack,” said Mr. Willowmeir, “allow me to introduce Bartholomew Buckingham. One of the finest thespians it was ever my pleasure to know!”

“What say you, Zachary?” Buckingham asked, his vowels round and rich. He cocked up a single eyebrow. “Will you assist us?”

“Me? What can I do?”

“Much. For you are the demon slayer, are you not?”

“Right,” mumbled Zack. “I’m special.”

“Huzzah!” shouted Buckingham.

“Huzzah!” echoed all the others.

Zack wasn’t sure, but he might’ve just said yes without even knowing he had said it.

“Oh, Zack?” said Mr. Willowmeier in a stage whisper.

“Yes, sir?”

“Not a word of this to Judy, Derek, or Meghan, eh?”

“How come?”

“I’m afraid they may soon need the protection of a demon slayer even more than we do!”