The Hanging Hill (15 page)

73

Wilbur Kimble dragged himself across the closet floor.

He had been locked up in the dark for nearly a full day. He was thirsty. Starving. Too weak to even speak, let alone cry out for help.

The closet door was so warped it made a tight seal along the bottom edge where it met the concrete floor. No light seeped in under it and the key was still down the drain, where he had dropped it when the sizzling ghost in the electric chair had made him all kinds of jumpy.

Wilbur Kimble was trapped. There was no way out.

His jailor, the spook who called himself Mad Dog Murphy, had vanished, threatening, of course, to come back.

He leaned against the closet door, closed his eyes, and dreamed of Clara—the one ghost he wished
would
come visit him.

“O, magnus Molochus.”

Kimble almost had a heart attack! Someone was out in the basement reciting
the words!

“Nos duo vitam nostram damus ut vos omnes qui hue arcessiti estis vivatis.”

This couldn’t be happening! The words! Spoken once again by a young boy. That pampered Hollywood brat Derek Stone!

Kimble attempted to pound his fist against the door but he couldn’t find the strength to lift his arm.

“Help.” His cry came out as a scratchy peep while the boy, oblivious to Kimble’s presence in the nearby closet, pressed on.

“Puer et puella, puri et fideles, morimur ut vos resuscitet.”

Puer et puella
. Boy and girl.

Puri et fideles
. Pure and true.

Kimble knew these words.

Could translate them from the Latin, because they were the very same words Professor Nicodemus had made him utter the day Clara died.

Now someone had brought the words back into the Hanging Hill Playhouse.

Kimble had failed. He hadn’t scared anyone away.

The moon would be full tonight, and the children—a boy and a girl—would still be in the theater.

Soon they might never be able to leave!

74

Derek sneezed.

The dust in this basement was abominable; breathing was like inhaling a sack of airborne plaster particles. He was surrounded by all manner of dust-covered trunks and theatrical props: a barber pole; a papier-mâché crown; whiskey barrels; a couple of baskets; and a fake pig, a wax apple stuck in its mouth, sitting on a silver serving platter.

He sneezed again. Wiped his nose. Sneezed some more.

Derek knew he needed to stop doing that.

He needed to memorize the new script. Mr. Grimes believed in him. He couldn’t let down the one person in the world who actually thought he might be good for something besides sitting on the couch eating Doritos!

He wiped at his watery eyes so he could read the script without the words looking all smudged.

“O, magnus Molochus!”

He heard someone clodhopping down the steel steps of the spiral staircase.

“Derek?”

It was Meghan!

“Are you down here?”

Quick! He had to hide the script. He couldn’t let Meghan McKenna see it. He couldn’t let anybody see it, because it was supposed to be a secret, and if he blew that secret, Mr. Grimes would be as disappointed in him as his mother always was.

He thought about the whiskey barrel. One of the baskets.

The pig!

He plucked out the apple, stuffed his folded piece of paper into the fake swine’s snout, and crammed the apple back into place—stirring up another cloud of dust.

“Hey, Derek! Whatcha doin’?”

“Dothing,” he said, sounding wheezy. The dust. There was so much down here. He was toast. Toast with a rash.

“Have you seen Zack?”

“Doe.”

“Was that a no?”

Derek’s chest rattled as he breathed in. “Yes.”

“You sound horrible. You’d better go outside, grab some fresh air.”

“O-tay.”

Derek raced across the basement and hurried up the steps to the lower lobby. His lungs ached, his ears itched, and his tear ducts were spritzing like berserk squirt guns.

He was such a weepy, sneezy, wheezy mess, he forgot all about his secret script and the supersecret place where he had so cleverly hidden it.

75

Zack stood in front of a mirror in the wardrobe room and tried on the turban.

It looked pretty awesome.

“Zack?”

It was Meghan, calling from somewhere in the basement’s tangled maze of corridors.

“Are you down here? Zack?”

“Over here! Costume room!”

A couple second later, Meghan found him. “Wow!” she said. “What’s that?”

“This neat magician’s costume I found in a trunk! Well, a ghost led me to it.”

“Juggler Girl?”

“No. A new one.” He decided to skip the bit about how Doll Face had followed him here from North Chester. “I found some cool posters, too.”

“Awesome,” said Meghan, moving in for a closer look.

“Oh, I almost forgot,” said Zack. “What’s ‘pandemonium’ mean?”

“Hunh?”

Zack picked up the poster and unfurled it. “This guy was called Professor Nicodemus and performed here in 1939.”

“That would’ve been in the days of vaudeville!” said Meghan. “They always had magicians, singers, jugglers.”

“Okay. But the poster says this particular magician’s act was a ‘Pandemonium Production.’ When I first got here, the janitor told me to ‘beware Pandemonium.’”

“That’s because he’s an old grouch who doesn’t like kids or actors, so he doesn’t like the Pandemonium Players.”

“Okay, but why are they called that?”

Meghan shrugged. “I’m not exactly sure.”

“What does the word ‘pandemonium’ mean?”

Meghan assumed her best spelling bee stance. “Pandemonium: A place or situation that is noisy and chaotic.”

“Was vaudeville noisy and chaotic?”

“Probably. Most theater is.”

“Could the word mean something else?”

“Maybe,” said Meghan. “We could check a dictionary.”

“Yeah.”

“Not as much fun as exploring the basement.”

“I know but …”

“Zack, I think the janitor told you to beware of pandemonium because janitors hate watching other people make a mess to eventually make something beautiful.”

“I guess you’re right,” said Zack, even though he wondered why Bartholomew Buckingham and Doll Face had said the same thing.

“Besides, there are so many other mysteries we still need to unravel! Why was Juggler Girl in that movie? Who set up the projector? And what about that weird statue of the man with the head of a bull? Come on! I’ve got the afternoon off. Let’s go see if Mr. Minotaur is still there!”

“Who?”

Meghan assumed her spelling bee pose again. “Minotaur: From Greek mythology. A monster with the body of a man and the head of a bull.”

76

Zack and Meghan found their way back to the archway that had led them to the gigantic statue the first time.

“Look at those gloves on the wall!” said Meghan. “They all kind of point toward the Minotaur’s lair!”

“Yeah,” said Zack. “I’ve been thinking: The Minotaur is sort of like Sobek, the Egyptian god of the Nile. He had a man’s body but a crocodile’s head.”

“Don’t forget Sekhmet,” said Meghan. “Body of a woman. Head of a lioness.”

They both paused and stared at each other. Zack had never met anybody fascinated by the same sort of stuff that fascinated him. In fact, he was used to bullies beating him up during recess for even knowing goofy stuff like Sobek and Sekhmet.

They rounded another shadowy corner, went down that switchback ramp, and approached the sliding barn doors to the scenery warehouse.

The doors were locked. A heavy padlocked chain was looped through the handles.

“That’s weird,” said Zack. “It was wide open yesterday.”

“Shhh!” said Meghan.

Then Zack heard it, too: muffled sounds coming from the other side of the door. Metal hitting metal. It sounded like someone banging a refrigerator with a sledgehammer.

Meghan held her finger up to her lips, leaned in, and cupped her left ear against the steel door. Zack did the same.

They heard gruff voices.

“Hurry up, Jamal!” said one man. “All must be in readiness!”

“It will be!”

More hammering. Steel on steel.

“They must be building scenery,” whispered Meghan.

“Yeah,” Zack whispered back. “Or tearing it apart.”

He felt a frigid breeze brush across the back of his neck. Goose pimples shivered down his spine all the way to his toes.

Judging from the expression on Meghan’s face, her neck, spine, and toes had just hit the deep freeze, too.

They both turned around slowly.

Very, very slowly.

“Hello, children!”

They saw a shriveled hag holding a small hatchet.

The hatchet was dripping blood.

77

The leering crone was wearing an antique black dress with poofy sleeves and a high collar.

“So,” she croaked. “You must be the two children! The chosen ones!”

Zack and Meghan shot each other a quick glance.

“Chosen for what?” asked Zack.

“To set us free!”

“Actually,” said Meghan, “I’m just here to do a show. It’s called
Curiosity Cat
. Oh, by the way, I’m Meghan McKenna. Who the heck are you?”

Zack couldn’t believe how cool Meghan was, getting sassy with a ghost.

“Lilly Pruett!”

“Who?” said Meghan, totally unimpressed.

“Oh, I’ve heard what you children say about me while skipping rope.” She swung her hatchet. Zack could see patches of dry blood on its dented blade.
“Lilly Pruett, said she didn’t do it, she was lying and everybody knew it!”

The hatchet was weeping blood now, splattering red droplets against the walls as she swung it back and forth like a grisly pendulum.

Meghan and Zack weren’t giggling anymore.

Lilly Pruett, however, was cackling.

“Lilly Pruett had six babies, chopped them up to make some gravy. When the kids were good and dead, she found their father and chopped off his head!”

Meghan looked at Zack.

Zack looked at Meghan.

They both yelled it at the same time: “Run!”

78

“Head for the door on the right!” Meghan shouted. “The staircase!”

They dashed across the cluttered storage space.

For some reason, this Lilly Pruett ghost seemed different from all the others Zack had ever met. More like a ghoul. The type that can actually feast on human flesh.

Zack sometimes wished he hadn’t read so many books from the library’s paranormal shelf.

“Lilly Pruett said she didn’t do it.”

Great. The hungry hellcat was right behind them.

“She was lying and everybody knew it.”

“Hurry, Zack!” Meghan wrenched open the exit door and leapt into the stairwell.

“I’m coming!” Zack wormed his way around some Styrofoam headstones. He dared to look over his shoulder.

Lilly Pruett was right behind him, toilet breath steaming out her nostrils. She had her hatchet all lined up and aimed at his neck.

Suddenly, something grabbed hold of a belt loop on Zack’s jeans and yanked him backward into the stairwell. The door slammed, and on the other side, as he raced up the steps after Meghan, he heard a woman who wasn’t Lilly Pruett scream, “Leave Zack alone, you crazy witch!”

He froze. So did Meghan.

“Zack? Who was that?”

“I don’t know.”

“She knew your name!”

“Yeah.” He headed down the stairs. Went to the door.

“Zack? What’re you doing?” For the first time since they’d met, Meghan McKenna sounded scared.

“I need to see who it was.”

“Lilly Pruett might still be out there!”

“I don’t hear her anymore.” He reached for the doorknob.

“Zack? Be careful. I think she’s different than the other ghosts. She might be able to actually hurt us.”

“I know. But I have to see who just saved me.”

Zack gripped the doorknob.

He squeaked open the door.

Peered into the basement.

“Lilly’s gone.”

“Good,” said Meghan, coming down the stairs.

In the distant shadows, under the brick archway, Zack caught a glimpse of the curly-haired ghost—right before she vanished.

“It was her again,” said Zack.

“Who?”

“The ghost who led me to the trunk.”

“Who is she?”

“I don’t know. I can never see her face!”

Zack felt a lump of guilt or shame or both jumbling up inside his throat. Sadness washed over him and left his limbs feeling weak. He felt like he had to cry, only he couldn’t, because he didn’t want Meghan McKenna to think he was a big fat baby.

A lone teardrop, the only one he couldn’t control, streaked down his cheek.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Don’t worry,” said Meghan as she rubbed the moist spot with her thumb. “We’ll figure it out, Zack. I promise. Together, we’ll figure it out.”

79

“Oh, we have quite a collection of Hanging Hill theatrical memorabilia,” said the librarian. “Especially for famous authors to look at!”

She led Judy and Mrs. McKenna into the rare books room. “I’ve pulled out all our historical playbills as well as the archives of our local newspaper.”

“Thank you,” said Judy as she and Mrs. McKenna sat down at a long table. “You sure you don’t mind helping me look into this, Mary?”

“Are you kidding? I was a history major. I love this stuff!”

They flicked on two green-shaded lamps and went to work.

“Here’s something,” said Judy, coming upon an antique playbill. “Professor Nicodemus performed here in August 1939.”

“Great,” said Mrs. McKenna. “I’ll check the local newspaper. See if there’s a review or a write-up.” She flipped through the long sheets of newsprint in a book of newspapers from 1939. “Here we go!”

Judy peered over her shoulder to read the article.

Nicodemus Packs Them In With
Mesmerizing But Horrifying Magic

Professor Nicholas Nicodemus proclaims himself a “resurrectionist” and boldly states at the beginning of his current show that he will raise the dead.

At first, this seems like innocent flimflam, the type of puffery often proclaimed by other magicians plying their trade on the vaudeville circuit.

But in his performance at Chatham’s Hanging Hill Playhouse, the self-proclaimed necromancer (one who communes with the dead), who wears a turban suggestive of the exotic East, was anything but innocent.

After some mildly amusing hypnotism and mind reading antics with willing volunteers from the audience, the “professor” proceeded to summon forth “those foul spirits who traipse between this world and the next.”

The spirits first summoned were harmless enough: a skeleton playing a banjo, a green goblin with a violin, and a waifish young woman surrounded by a flock of fluttering doves.

It was in the second half of his act that Nicodemus crossed the line from innocent entertainer to treacherous sorcerer as he pretended to call forth the souls of Connecticut’s most notorious criminals.

He summoned William Bampfield, a Pilgrim sent to the gallows in 1636 after he killed his wife and three young daughters. Next came the most egregious example of Professor Nicodemus’s ill-considered conjuring, Lilly Pruett, the psycho path who terrorized Hartford in the late 1890s. She swooped across the stage, brandishing her bloody hatchet, the one made infamous in the jump rope rhyme “Lilly Pruett said she didn’t do it.”

It was at this point in the evening’s proceedings that this reporter vacated the theater. I am pleased to report that I wasn’t the only gentleman in attendance who chose to walk out on Professor Nicodemus’s misguided shenanigans. Pretending to dabble in spirituality for the audience’s amusement is one thing. Terrorizing your spectators with foul visitations from the lower depths is quite another!

This reviewer has no idea how the “necromancy” illusions were engineered and, frankly, has no desire to find out. It was, in my professional opinion, tasteless and tawdry gimcrackery of the worst sort!

“Wow,” said Judy. “Sounds like Mr. Grimes’s grandfather put on a pretty twisted show.”

“Mr. Grimes’s grandfather?” said Mrs. McKenna.

“Professor Nicodemus was his stage name.”

“Wait a minute,” said Mrs. McKenna. “I heard Grimes was an orphan.”

“Really?”

“I asked about his crippled arm and the company manager told me Grimes injured it in an accident at an orphanage when he was very young.”

“Okay,” said Judy, sitting back from the table. “Guess you guys will have plenty to talk about at that party tonight.”