The Hanging Hill

by Chris Grabenstein

  Mr. Grimes had said he wanted this new scene memorized by tonight. His mother had said he needed to change clothes and put on his tuxedo, which she always insisted he pack, wherever they traveled, just in case somebody wanted to give him a key to their city or something.

  It never happened. Nobody ever thought he was that good of an actor.

  Except Mr. Grimes. He was the first person ever to believe in Derek.

  Wait a second.

  He was an actor!

  He could fake it!

  He could use his training in improvisation, all those Acting 101 classes he hated, where he had to pretend to be a strip of bacon sizzling in a frying pan or a pebble in somebody’s shoe.

  “Oh, magnifying Malarkey!” Yes. The first line went something like that. “Oh, magnificent Mucus!”

  He could do this. He could pull it off. The words were such phonetic mumbo jumbo, who would even know if he was saying them correctly?

  Derek was feeling good again. Confident.

  He heard a noise in the stairwell. Someone was coming down the set of steps that led up to everybody’s bedrooms. Fast!

  Derek decided it was time for him to leave. He dashed over to the spiral staircase, grabbed hold of the banister, and raced up to the lower lobby as swiftly as he could—taking the steps two at a time.

  87

  Zipper chased the bouncing ghost balls into the basement.

  Zack chased Zipper.

  There had been five balls; now there was only one and it was sitting in front of a door with Janitor Closet stenciled on it.

  When Zipper bit into the ball, it poofed into a hazy puff and disappeared. Zack laughed, because with wispy steam curling out both sides of his muzzle, Zipper looked like he’d just been caught smoking a cigar.

  Zipper whimpered.

  Zack went over to give him a reassuring head rub and maybe a splash of water to wash the taste of ectoplasm out of his mouth.

  “Help…”

  Zipper cocked his head sideways, raised an ear.

  “Did you hear that?” Zack asked his dog.

  Zipper barked what had to be a “Yes!” and started scratching at the closet door.

  “Help…”

  “It’s coming from inside the closet!” Zack banged on the heavy steel door. “Hello?”

  “Help…”

  “Somebody’s in there, Zip!”

  Zack grabbed the doorknob. It wouldn’t turn. He yanked it. It wouldn’t budge.

  “Hang on! I’ll run upstairs! Get somebody to help!”

  “No…”

  “What?”

  “No…”

  “I’m going upstairs…”

  “No…”

  Zack lay down on the floor, put his head near the crack under the door.

  “Sir, I’m going upstairs to tell them that you’re in trouble.”

  “Don’t!” The voice sounded stronger. The man sounded old. Grouchy. “The children!” Okay, now he sounded like the grumpy old-fart janitor.

  “Hello, Zack,” said a soft female voice.

  He turned around. It was the actress. Not the bowing one. The singing one from Bats in Her Belfry. Kathleen Williams. She looked like a lot of the 1950s-style ghosts Zack had met back in North Chester: she wore a jazzy hat and a dress that swung out like a flowery bell.

  “Remember me?” she said.

  “Um … I saw you do the matinee yesterday.”

  “Was I good?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, I owe it all to you, Demon Slayer.”

  “Hunh?”

  “I told Mr. Willowmeier all about you, Zack. Told him how you slay demons, because I was on the bus. The one you set free.”

  “You were?”

  “Sure. After my smashing success on Broadway, I became a nightclub singer. Toured the country! I was riding on that Greyhound to my next gig when we had that dreadful accident.”

  “And you were stuck in North Chester?”

  “That’s right. Until you came along. I owe my triumphant return to the stage to you, Zack. I owe you big!”

  “Thanks. But, right now, well—there’s a man locked inside that closet.”

  “Where’s the key?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “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 Gri
mes 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.”

  “Aya. Don’t want to pass out. Too much to tell you.”

  “Come on, Zip. Find us some food! Anything!”

  Zipper took off, sniffing at all the trunks, sticking his nose into a bunch of the baskets, snorting up a storm. Zack looked around the basement and saw all sorts of fake food. Plastic fruit. The Cratchit family’s mammoth tom turkey—carved out of foam—from A Christmas Carol. On the rear wall, he saw all those gloves and gauntlets again plus a string of sausages. Wax sausages.

  Zack looked again.

  The gloves were no longer pointing to the right. All the fingers were aimed at the center of the room.

  Zack turned around.

  Now he noticed something else pretty peculiar: A quiver of arrows was pointing toward a spear, the tip of which was pointing toward a grandfather clock, the hands of which were pointing toward a parasol, the top of which was pointing to a stuffed pig on a platter.

  Ghosts. They had their ways of dropping hints when they wanted to.

  The pig looked like it was made out of plastic but the apple jammed in its snout looked pretty real. Zack plucked it out. Nope. More fake fruit.

  But there was something hidden inside the pig. A folded sheet of paper. Zack pulled it out. Started reading it.

  “Magnus Molochus …”

  “Don’t!” cried the janitor. “Don’t!”

  That was when Zipper barked.

  “Find something, boy?”

  Another bark.

  “Hang on!”

  Zipper was nosing outside the vents of a dented locker.

  Zack opened the locker door. Inside, he saw some rolled-up blueprints, a rumpled coat, and a lunch bag.

  “Score!”

  Inside the bag was a moldy bologna sandwich in a plastic bag, Cheetos, Ho Hos, a Snickers bar, and a bottle of Snapple.

  Zipper moaned like he wanted the bologna.

  “Forget it,” said Zack. “It’s green.” Zack hurried back to the closet with the junk food that was so tightly sealed it had never gone bad.

  “Here you go.” He tore the wrapper off the Snickers bar and handed it to Kimble. The old man wolfed it down in four quick chomps. Revived, he glared hard at Zack.

  “Those words … the ones you were just saying …”

  “‘Magnus Molochus’?”

  Kimble nodded.

  “They were written on a sheet of paper I found.”

  Kimble gestured for Zack to hand him the paper.

  “Do you read Latin, son?”

  “No,” said Zack. “But I don’t think anybody does these days.”

  “Oh yes, they do,” said Kimble. “The minions of Moloch. This is their resurrection ritual.” Kimble handed the paper back to Zack and started reciting its verses from memory. “‘O, magnus Molochus.’ That translates to ‘O, mighty Moloch.’”

  “Okay.”

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

  “What’s that mean?”

  “We two our lives do give so all you summoned here might live.”

  “Two people are giving up their lives?”

  “Aya. That’s how the ritual works. It’s a swap, see? Two innocents for a legion of the damned.”

  Zack glanced at the script, read the next line out loud: “‘Puer et puella, puri et fideles, morimur ut vos resuscitet.’”

  Kimble translated: “Boy and girl, pure and true, we die so that He might resurrect you.”

  “Wait a second. Is it Meghan and Derek?”

  Kimble kept going from memory. “‘Animas nostras tradimus ut vestrae successus prosperos habeant.’ We give up our souls so yours will prosper well. ‘In ignem ingredimur ut vos i
nferna fugiatis.’ We enter the fire so you can escape hell.”

  “Fire? Are Meghan and Derek going into some kind of fire?”

  “Aya.”

  “This is crazy. You’re telling me that somebody’s going to try to kill Meghan and Derek, burn them alive, so they can get somebody else out of hell?”

  “Everybody else. All the demons.”

  That hit Zack hard. “Pandemonium! When are they going to do this thing?”

  “When the full moon rises.”

  “That’s tonight! It was nearly full yesterday.”

  “When it rises, the ceremony will commence. Both your friends will be offered up as a sacrifice to Moloch.”

  “What?”

  “They’ll be roasted alive across the lap of that statue you say you found downstairs.”

  “The Minotaur!” said Zack. “How come you know all this?”

  “Professor Nicodemus once made me recite those very same words.”

  “The magician?”

  “Aya. Seventy years ago, he made me say them out loud. Then he threw my baby sister Clara into the fire! I helped him kill her!”

  92

  “You look very pretty!” Judy said to Meghan when she came into the lower lobby and joined the group clustered near the door to the basement.

  “My mom said I should wear a dress.”

  “And I was right,” said Mrs. McKenna. “Come on, a private party with the director is a big deal.”

  “I guess.”

  “Have you guys seen Zack?” Judy asked. “Derek said he saw him downstairs.”

  Derek blanched. “Not recently.”

  “What?”

  “I meant I saw him down here earlier.”

  An elevator door slid open near the concession stand.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentleman!” Grimes called out as he glided across the carpet, trailed by his assistant, Hakeem.

  Judy, who had thrown on a clean white blouse and a fresh pair of jeans, felt seriously underdressed: Grimes had on white tie and tails, a cape, and a turban. Hakeem was decked out in some sort of religious-looking robe-and-fez combo.

  “Excuse me,” said Judy. “I need to run back upstairs. My stepson, Zack, is—”