What the hell?
“You’re ... you’re going to let me go?” I stuttered.
“What?” Bertie said. “Of course. Why wouldn’t I? I thought you were some kook out to discredit me.”
“No way. I’m a believer,” I lied, hoping it would save my skin.
As Bertie reached the door, my eyesight was hazy, but clearing. He stopped pushing the wheelchair, then scooted around it and flung open the door. Even with my limited sight, I could see he was red and sweaty from the ordeal.
“Sorry about this,” he said as he pushed me toward the door. “I’ll untie you in the hallway. This has all been just a silly misunderstanding.”
“Sure,” I giggled hysterically. “That works for me.”
Suddenly, a dark shadow appeared in the open doorway.
Not another blind spell! I thought, and closed my eyes hoping to ward it off.
“And just where do you think you’re goin’?” Earl’s voice boomed into the room.
Aw, no!
My wheelchair came to a screeching halt, nearly catapulting me out of it. I flung open my eyes.
Earl’s burly, bear-like silhouette blocked the oversized doorframe. I locked eyes with him, hoping to tell him we were in the clear, if he’d just—but then I realized he wasn’t looking at me.
Earl was staring at a point near my right elbow.
I shifted my eyes in that direction. The shiny barrel of a pistol was pointing right at my cousin’s beer gut.
Aw, shit!
“New game plan. Get in here and close the door behind you,” Bertie barked.
I shook my head.
I could scarcely believe it.
It was just too bad to be true.
Chapter Fifty
THE METAL DOOR CLICKED solidly behind us. My vision had cleared enough to see that Bertie was holding us at gunpoint in a long, narrow room with metal walls.
The room was empty except for a shiny, white, pod-like contraption in the corner that appeared to be some kind of flash-freezing unit. Next to it was a rectangular object covered with a beige tarp. It was about the size and shape of a double-door freezer. If this was a meat locker, it was in need of fresh meat.
“Lord-a-mercy! Is that your coffin?” Earl asked, pointing at the long, cylindrical machine in the corner.
“No!” Bertie said. “It’s not a coffin. It’s a hyperbaric chamber.”
“Oh! Like the one Michael Jackson and Bubbles slept in,” Earl said.
Bertie’s already red face went crimson. The tendons on his scrawny neck stuck out like a lizard’s dewlap.
“See?” Bertie screeched. “This is why I can’t have nice things! People think I’m a freak!” He aimed the gun at Earl’s belly. “Now get over there. Get in the cage!”
“What cage?” Earl asked.
A vein in Bertie’s temple began to pulsate as if it were about to erupt. “The one under the tarp over there. Now do it!”
Earl strolled over to investigate what was under the rectangular stretch of tarp.
As he bent over to pick up the edge of the fabric, someone cried out from underneath it.
“Help me!”
The woman I’d heard earlier!
“You got somebody else in there, too?” Earl asked. “That’s illegal, you know.”
“Shut up and get in!” Bertie said.
Earl lifted the tarp, revealing a huge, wrought-iron cage. Inside, half naked and frazzled, was the biggest damned parrot I’d ever seen.
“Dirty Bertie!” it squawked at an ear-splitting decibel.
“For the last time, shut up, Polly!” Bertie yelled. He blew out an angry sigh and muttered at me. “Gift from a grateful believer. Been the bane of my existence for nearly fifty years.”
“Why are you doing this to us?” I asked.
“Because the last thing I need is more bad publicity,” Bertie said. “Everybody thinks it’s a miracle from God that I look this good at one hundred. If they find out that it’s because of the chamber there, the mystery surrounding my persona will be ruined. I’ll just be another blow-hard hack.”
“Just tell ’em you eat Kale,” Earl said, stepping into the cage. “Like all them celebrities do.”
Bertie thought it over. “But then, I’d have to eat kale.”
“That’s the down side,” Earl said, closing the cage door behind him.
“Listen, I’m sorry about this,” Bertie said. “But I can’t have anyone knowing about the hyperbaric chamber. And I’m too damned old to start eating kale now. My colon would blow a gasket.”
“I heard that,” Earl said, rubbing his stomach. “If I had to choose between life and kale, I’d be hard pressed to decide myself.”
“Thanks for understanding,” Bertie said, locking the bird cage with a padlock. “I’ll have to wait until the crowd’s gone before we can dispose of you two.”
“Dispose?” I asked.
“Mind if I eat the sunflower seeds while we wait?” Earl said, picking up the parrot’s food cup.
Bertie shot him a look. “Eat the damned bird for all I care.”
“Thanks.” Earl smiled at Bertie, then glanced over at me. My exasperated expression made him blanch.
“What?” Earl asked, and popped a sunflower seed into his mouth.
I COULD SEE AGAIN, but it was mostly red.
I’d been tied to a wheelchair for what seemed like hours now, forced to watch Earl eat sunflower seeds and try to teach a half-buzzard parrot named Polly how to say, “two-headed turtle.”
Oh, the humanity.
“How’d you find me?” I asked Earl, just to get him to stop saying two-headed turtle.
“Rocko,” he answered, spitting out a seed hull. “He let me in the back door.”
I chewed my lip. “I wonder what those other two bodyguards did with Grayson.”
Earl shrugged. “Maybe they got him caged up with another parrot somewheres.”
I shook my head. “If Grayson doesn’t show up soon, our only hope is to talk Bertie into letting us go by swearing on our lives to be discrete. Can you do that?”
“Two-headed turtle,” the parrot said.
I slumped back in my wheelchair. “You’re right, Polly. It’s hopeless.”
Chapter Fifty-One
I’D ALMOST DOZED OFF, content in the fact my life would soon be over, and I’d never have to hear the words “two-headed turtle” ever again.
The door handle squeaked. I jerked back to full consciousness.
The door flew open. Bertie stepped inside, flanked by two of his bouncer goons.
“How about a nice ride in the country?” Bertie asked.
“That sounds cool,” Earl said. “Can we stop for hamburgers on the way? I’m starvin’. Sunflower seeds just don’t—”
“Shut up!” Bertie screeched. He nudged one of the men. “Put some duct tape over his mouth.”
Right. Now you shut him up.
“Can’t we work something out?” I asked as the two thugs took Earl from the cage, duct-taped his hands together, then plastered a strip over his mouth.
“Sorry,” Bertie said. “Like I said before, I can’t have anyone knowing I sleep in a hyperbaric chamber. They’ll think I’m some kind of sideshow freak, like they did my father.”
“You’re not a first-generation healer?” I asked.
“No. My father and grandfather were also what the old timers called ‘electric people.’”
“Electric people?”
“Yeah. You know. People who stop watches if they wear ’em. Or make street lights go out when they walk by.”
“But there’s more to your gift than that,” I said. “The device I brought with me. It says you’re able to alter people’s electromagnetic fields. Is that how you heal them?”
Bertie shrugged. “I don’t know. I never questioned it. But maybe there’s something to that. I remember folks used to call my grandfather the ‘Magneto Man.’”
“We’re ready, boss,” one of the bodyguards said.
&
nbsp; I looked up. The other tattooed muscle man was hauling Earl toward the door. My cousin glanced back and shot me what I figured he meant as a reassuring face—the part that wasn’t covered in duct tape, anyway. I smiled and nodded back.
God speed, cousin.
“Let’s go,” Bertie said, and shoved my wheelchair out the oversized metal door. Only when we joggled over the threshold did I realize we’d been inside the metal trailer of a semi-truck. It’d been parked up against the raised walkway that led to the stage.
When we turned a corner and rolled out onto the stage, it was shocking to see how dramatically everything had changed. The crowds were gone, along with their kinetic energy. The tent was an empty hull. Only a few side lights and exit signs illuminated the stale, dull air within it.
“All this will be gone after our big celebration tomorrow,” Bertie said.
“Your hundredth birthday,” I half-whispered.
He gave me a sad smile. “That’s right. Too bad you won’t be around to see it. It’s gonna be spectacular.”
“The ushering in of a new vampire cult,” I said.
Bertie’s face shifted from mild empathy to not-so-mild anger. “What?”
“That’s what my partner, the private investigator believes. He says you’re a psychic vampire.”
The two bodyguards turned and looked at me. I might not have known all the tricks Grayson did, but I was a fast learner. And, as a former mall cop, I knew what it was like to put your life on the line for barely over minimum wage.
“Be careful, guys,” I warned. “That’s really how Bertie stays so young. He doesn’t heal people. He sucks the life energy out of them, instead.”
The two goons exchanged glances. “Bullshit,” the one closest to me said.
“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t try to warn you. That’s what Bertie’s planning to do with me and my cousin. We’re his next energy meals, ready to eat.”
The guys’ faces registered a hint of skepticism. Whether it was about me or Bertie, I couldn’t ascertain.
I turned to Bertie. “Why aren’t you hauling us away in the big semi-truck?”
He frowned. “What do you care? It uses too much gas.”
I nodded. “Oh, sure. I guess all that money you save goes to give these guys a good salary and benefits.”
The goons frowned.
“Have you seen the cost of health care plans?” Bertie said. He looked over at the guys. “I’m working on it, I promise.”
“Still?” I laughed. “You’ve had a hundred years already.”
“Shut up!” Bertie yelped. He jabbed a gnarled finger at one of the guys. “You. Duct tape her mouth.”
“We didn’t bring the tape with us,” the goon said.
“Ugh!” Bertie groaned. “Do I have to do everything myself, you half-w—”
The two men were glaring at Bertie.
The old man backtracked quicker than Bo Jangles.
“Don’t get me wrong, fellas,” Bertie said. “You guys do good work. Tell you what, I’ll get the tape myself.” Bertie took a step toward the side of the stage, then turned around. “On second thought, let’s just go. Load ’em up in the van.”
“I hope you’re getting paid extra for homicide,” I said to the guy pushing my chair.
“Time and a half,” Bertie said.
“Oh. Sure. Just like San Quentin,” I quipped.
Bertie’s face twisted with rage. “Come on, you two. Let’s go!”
BEHIND MY BRAVADO OF sarcasm, I was trembling like Jell-O in a 9.7-Richter earthquake.
When Bertie and his goons rolled me out into the dirt parking lot behind the massive revival tent, my teeth began to chatter. Whether it was from fear or the stark, chilly breeze, I couldn’t say for sure. In the cloudy night sky above our heads, tree branches rustled like tissue-paper ghosts, swirling to the rhythm of the unseen wind.
“Keep moving,” Bertie barked.
The guard who had Earl by the arm shoved him forward. My wheelchair lurched.
Ahead, in the distance, the white van glowed surreally in the light of an overcast moon. On its side, Bertie’s larger-than-life image—once comical—now appeared sinister, like a ghoul beckoning us to our fate.
An icepick of fear stabbed me in the back.
I knew that once they loaded us on board, we were doomed.
I closed my eyes and prayed for a miracle.
Chapter Fifty-Two
EARL WAS BOUND AND gagged with duct tape, yet he didn’t seem to sense the peril we were in. His trusting nature was the opposite of mine. Sometimes, I was envious of it. But not at this exact moment.
Bertie and his two bodyguards were taking us to his van to be “disposed of.” Earl wasn’t even putting up a struggle. He must’ve really believed it when Bertie had said we were going for “a ride in the country.”
I opened my mouth to yell, “Run, Earl!” but I didn’t get the words out. The guy pushing my wheelchair hit a muddy pothole. I lurched sideways with the chair and the armrest knocked the words right out of me.
“Ung,” the goon pushing me grunted.
“What’s wrong?” Bertie asked.
“Nothin’. Just stuck in a hole.”
As the guy shoved at chair trying to get out of the hole, I pleaded with our captor. “It’s not too late to call this off, Bertie.”
“I’m afraid it is, sister,” Bertie said. “I can’t let anything jeopardize my big party tomorrow.”
Suddenly, as if on cue, strange jungle drums began to echo in the darkness, just beyond the reach of the lamp posts’ yellowish, conical beams of light.
Bertie’s face creased with concern. “What the hell?”
Somewhere in the near distance, a voice broke into a tribal chant, filling the thick air like a portent from an old Tarzan movie.
“Hooga-shaka. Hooga-shaka.”
“Stay away!” Bertie yelled. Clearly spooked, he grabbed his gun from his pocket and pointed it at me. “Stay away or the girl gets it!”
“Girl?” the goon pushing my wheelchair said. He stopped in his tracks.
“Bertie’s crazy,” I whispered.
“Hey Walter, I think the old man’s losing it,” he yelled to the other guard who had ahold of Earl. “Thinks this old buzzard here’s a woman.”
Walter looked me up and down, then stomped his feet. “I knew this would happen! I’ve still got three years on my car payments!”
“Hush!” Bertie screeched.
The three men clammed up momentarily. In the silent void that followed, a ghostly woman’s voice echoed in the breeze. “Let them go-oooo, Bertie.”
Bertie froze. “Is that ... is that you, Ma?”
“Uh,” the voice fumbled. “Yes, Bertie. I am your mother. Let them go-ooo.”
Bertie’s face puckered. “I can’t, Ma! They ... they think I’m a freak, like Dad!”
“Freaks need love, too, Bertie, baby,” the woman cooed.
Bertie’s eyes darted around wildly. “If that really is you, Ma, call me what you always called me when I was a kid.”
“Uh ... can you give me a hint?” the voice asked softly.
Bertie winced. “BB. Remember?”
“Ah, yes. Beautiful Boy,” the voice sang.
“No,” Bertie whined. “Bastard Brat. I hate you, Mommy!”
Bertie raised his gun and fired into the darkness. The blast’s recoil sent his frail frame tumbling onto the soggy ground beside me. As he fell, the front of his toupee flapped up and over, then clung to the back of his skull like a road-kill possum.
Bertie glanced up at me. His sinewy face registered sheer terror. He dropped the gun and scrambled to secure his toupee. As he knelt on the ground and folded his fake hair back onto his moon-like pate, the goon in charge of me hustled over and kicked the gun out of his reach.
“No guns, Bertie,” he said.
Bernie looked up at him with the face of an angry child. “But—”
A man’s deep voice echoed from the darkne
ss to my right, silencing Bertie. “I call upon you, great animal spirit!”
All of us craned our heads in that direction and peered into the chilly, night air. Suddenly, an African warrior stepped into the ghostly light of the lamppost.
It was Stanley!
Dressed only in a bear-claw necklace and an animal skin, he waved his arms like an orchestra conductor and yelled, “Harness the wind, spirit animal! Defend the innocent!”
A sudden blast of arctic wind gusted across the parking lot like an invisible tsunami. Overhead, a tree limb cracked. I looked up. Above me, a five-foot long, horned beast was hurtling at us from the sky like a rogue asteroid.
I screamed and ducked.
A second later, I heard a sickening thud.
“Unkgh!” Bertie grunted, as the creature landed squarely atop his back. The impact knocked Bertie off his knees, flattening him in the dirt like a dehydrated belly-flop.
“Get thee off my behind, Satan!” Bertie screeched, clawing at the fork-tongued monster riding his spine. He glanced up at me, wild eyed, and yelled, “Help! Get it off me!”
Tied to the wheelchair, I couldn’t exactly offer much assistance other than to cheer the beast on.
“What should we do?” I heard Walter yell. I looked over at Bertie’s bodyguards just in time to see them exchange glances, then take off running—in the opposite direction.
Frozen in horror, I was fated to watch, helpless, as Bertie writhed on the ground beside me, wrestling in the mud with a monster every bit as ugly as the devil himself.
Chapter Fifty-Three
“SOMEBODY HELP!” I FINALLY managed to yell, my eyes still glued on Bertie and the beast wrestling in the mud beside my wheelchair.
Stanley, who’d been standing frozen with his mouth open, suddenly thawed. He ran over to Earl and ripped the duct tape from his mouth, then he sprinted up to me.
“You okay?” he asked. “What happened?”
“You didn’t see?”
“No. I only heard a thud and—”
“Augh!” Bertie grunted.
Stanley and I turned and looked down at the ground, where my wheelchair had been blocking his view.
Moth Busters, Dr. Prepper, Oral Robbers: Freaky Florida Mystery Adventures 1, 2 & 3 Page 60