The Hanging Hill

by Chris Grabenstein

  Yes! Judy found the slack, wrestled her hands free, and pulled off her blindfold. Started to work on the ropes binding her ankles. “Thanks, Clara!”

  Clara was gone.

  “Hang on, Mary!” Judy crawled back into the box. Maneuvered around Derek’s unconscious mom. Started untying Mrs. McKenna’s wrists and ankles.

  “Was that a ghost?” Mrs. McKenna asked.

  “Yeah. I think so.”

  “What about Mrs. Stone?”

  “We’ll come back for her.”

  The two moms crawled out the secret panel on the bottom of the box.

  They heard a man screaming and laughing in the darkened wings stage right.

  “You fools!”

  His voice was dripping evil.

  “You weaklings will never stop us!”

  “Let’s go out the other way,” Judy whispered.

  Mrs. McKenna nodded.

  They ran as quickly and quietly as they could for the stage door on their left.

  101

  “You weaklings will never stop us!”

  Zack recognized the maniac with the meat cleaver from that night on the elevator. The caped madman’s shirt and waistcoat were splattered with more blood than he remembered. His top hat nearly flew off his head as he swung his cleaver like an ax and chopped at all the wires and cables snaking up to the table where the stage manager called cues during live performances.

  “I’d kill you both, but I have my orders!”

  He smashed out a computer monitor.

  Of course Mr. Meat Cleaver had chopped the telephone lines first. Slashed right through them with his butcher blade. Smashed the handset with the butt end of his cleaver handle just to make certain nobody would be calling anybody anytime soon.

  This was so weird.

  The guy was obviously a ghost or a ghoul, so how come he was able to destroy things in the real world?

  Zack glanced over at Mr. Kimble, who was quaking in his work boots. He hadn’t seen as many spooks as Zack. This was only like his second.

  “Where do you keep the jewelry, boy?” the butcher beast snarled at Zack.

  Zack thought fast. “Uh, downstairs. There’s a big statue made out of gold!”

  “Gold?”

  Zack nodded. Fast.

  The butcher looked like he was drooling when he disappeared.

  “Who was he?” asked Kimble.

  “Don’t know,” said Zack.

  “He is a demi-devil, a thing of darkness!” said Bartholomew Buckingham as he faded into view.

  “Mr. Buckingham,” said Zack, “what’s going on? That maniac could actually use his meat cleaver!”

  “The time is out of joint, Zachary! O, cursed spite! That ever you were born to set it right!”

  “What?”

  “A full moon now rises in the east. In the tug of its gravitational pull, the rules, like the tides, are prone to shift and sway!”

  “So tonight, the ghosts can hurt people?”

  “Not if you stop them!”

  “How?”

  “I cannot tell you!”

  “How?”

  Bartholomew swung his arm grandly to the left.

  “Seek and ye shall find!”

  The scene shop!

  102

  Grimes ruffled and furled his cape. “Hear me, my loyal and obedient followers! Behold the boy and girl, pure and true!”

  He was pointing at Meghan and Derek.

  “Meghan?”

  “Don’t worry, Derek.”

  “What? Don’t worry? They want to kill us.”

  “Help is on the way.”

  “Who? They locked up our mothers. Nobody else is in the theater!”

  “Zack is.”

  Derek moaned. “We’re dead.”

  “Silence, boy!” snapped Grimes. Then he turned to face the statue. “Mighty Moloch, we offer unto you, these two children, pure and true!”

  Meghan felt the gun in her back again. “Get ready, kid,” sneered the thug. “You’re almost on.”

  “Hear me, voracious creator!” Grimes bellowed. “Accept the purest flesh, the sweetest blood! For these two moon children are now ready to depart this earth!”

  Oh, no I’m not, thought Meghan.

  103

  Judy and Mrs. McKenna were in the greenroom—the actors’ lounge connected to the dressing rooms backstage.

  Judy heard someone scraping at the door that led into the lobby.

  Now she heard a bark. A very familiar bark.

  Judy pulled open the door.

  Zipper jumped up against her legs and was trying to lick her face and bark and jump and lick some more—all at the same time.

  “Where’s Zack?” Judy asked.

  Zipper jumped down. Panted hard. Looked like he was thinking. Sniffed. Once. Twice.

  Then he took off.

  Back the way Judy and Mary McKenna had just come.

  104

  “Let’s do this thing!” Grimes barked at Hakeem. “Now!”

  “No, Holiness. The portal will not be fully open until the moon is fully risen.”

  “Blasted curse!”

  “Patience, Eminence. Patience. Come with me.” Hakeem led Grimes around to the rear of the statue. “See how even now the shroud between this world and the next grows thin?” He pointed to that section of floor squared off by the rotted pillars of the old gallows. The concrete had become translucent and resembled a rippling sheet of wax paper. Grimes could see a whole horde of demons writhing like a bucket of slimy worms beneath his feet.

  “Hear me, my people, and listen well! Soon will I lead you all across the threshold of death and restore you to life!”

  “Is the boy ready?” snarled a voice from down below. “Will he say the words?”

  “What?” Grimes cried imperiously.

  “Remember, Reginald,” the unknown voice rumbled on, “the boy child must willingly recite the Latin script or Moloch will be displeased.”

  “Bah!” said Grimes. “Which of you demons dares question me?”

  “One who knows whereof he speaks,” answered Hakeem. “Your grandfather. Professor Nicholas Nicodemus.”

  105

  At Bartholomew Buckingham’s suggestion, Zack and Mr. Kimble hurried into the gloomy scene shop.

  Looking for … well, whatever they were supposed to find.

  Kimble tapped Zack on the shoulder. Pointed.

  In the middle of the big room, near what looked like a winch coiled with metal cable, Zack saw a short man in baggy pants and suspenders holding his fedora so he could stare down through a hole in the floor without his hat falling into it.

  It was the same guy Zack had seen last night tossing sparklers up to Juggler Girl.

  “Pietro?” mumbled Mr. Kimble.

  The man looked up from the hole. Put the hat on his head.

  “Hey! Little Wilbur! How you doin’, henh?”

  The man had a very thick Italian accent.

  “You know this guy?” Zack whispered to Kimble.

  “Aya. Used to, anyways. Pietro Bacigalupi. Top special effects man. Back in the 1940s. Died on the job.”

  The little man shrugged. “There was an accident. Somebody smoked a cigar. Whattaya gonna do?”

  “Mr. Bacigalupi was the premiere pyrotechnics wizard of his day,” said Kimble. “Smoke pots. Explosions. Canon fire. Whatever a show needed!”

  “And Mr. Willowmeier?” said Bacigalupi. “Lemme tell you. The man, he like a nice Fourth of July picnic and fireworks extravaganza. Rockets. Shells. The works. But always remember one thing!” He wagged his finger at Zack. “Safety first!” The finger was a stump and a knuckle.

  Bacigalupi looked at the floor again.

  “Looks like they got another kind of party goin’ on down there. Maybe a barbeque.”

  Zack noticed that there was a four-by-four square missing from the floor.

  “Is that a trapdoor, sir?”

  “Sì, sì, sì.”

  “How’d you o
pen that hatch?”

  He shrugged. “I wanted to open it real bad, you know? And guess what? She opened.”

  Yep. The time and rules were definitely out of joint.

  Zack leaned over, peered down through the opening.

  Thirty feet below them was the scenery storage room. Zack could see the Minotaur statue. A guy in a turban. Another guy in robes.

  Meghan and Derek.

  “It’s Moloch!” gasped Kimble. “The sacrifice!”

  Zack turned to the ghost. “How do you raise and lower scenery to the storage room?”

  “In my day,” said Bacigalupi, “we used this winch right here.”

  “Do you know how to operate it, Mr. Kimble?”

  “Sure, but …”

  Zack turned to the dead pyrotechnical wizard. “Mr. Bacigalupi? Did you bring any supplies with you tonight?”

  He shrugged. “Not much. Just, you know, some Roman candles, couple sky rockets, some willows, waterfalls, multi break shells.” He tipped his head toward a six-foot-long wooden crate. “Maybe one or two dozen bottle rockets, this very pretty Pandora’s blast, some flares, fountains…. Not much, really.”

  Stenciled on the side of the crate was a warning: DANGER. EXTREMELY FLAMMABLE AND EXPLOSIVE.

  “Will they work?” asked Zack.

  Bacigalupi shrugged again. “Tonight, they probably work as good as a meat cleaver.”

  “Give me a hand!” Zack said to Kimble.

  The two of them pried the lid off the wooden box.

  Then Zack started stuffing his pockets.

  106

  Reginald Grimes was on his knees, staring at the floor.

  “Grandfather?”

  “Stand up straight, Reginald,” the wizened old man hissed from below.

  “How did you get here?”

  “The Indian’s curse! It summons more demons to this spot than you or I ever could! Hurry, boy! We haven’t much time!”

  “But—I’ve never met anyone in my family before!”

  “And you never will if you do not complete the resurrection ritual—now!”

  “Fear not, Grandfather. I will not fail you.”

  “Good, because your father certainly did. Stupid, no-good sluggard. Tried to sacrifice his own daughter and son.”

  “What?”

  “You were both born under the full moon. My disciples were too late to save your sister. But Hakeem’s father was able to yank you out. Of course, the fire destroyed your arm.”

  Grimes stared at his withered limb. “My father did this to me?”

  “Yes! The imbecile. I was in jail. Heard what he was intending to do. Didn’t even have his Tophet set up in the proper place, here at the portal. Rented a warehouse in Danbury. Used toddlers too young to even speak, let alone recite the incantation.”

  “But…”

  “Don’t worry. He paid for his mistake.”

  “My father slayed him,” said Hakeem, bowing slightly. “Your mother as well.”

  “Then you people put me in that orphanage…”

  “This is your one chance, Reginald!” shouted the professor. “Redeem our family name! You are the only one who can, for you are the sole surviving male heir to our royal bloodline!”

  “My father … my mother …”

  “Are both dead! But I can live again. Begin the sacrificial rite!”

  107

  Sniffing and scampering, Zipper led the way.

  Judy and Mrs. McKenna were right behind him. They ran back onto the set, past the ghost lamp, into the wings at stage right.

  The monster who had been screaming behind the curtains was, thankfully, gone.

  But the stage manager’s desk had been demolished.

  Zipper sniffed. The desk. The stool. The floor. He circled a few times. Made up his mind. Headed right. Kept running.

  Into the scenery shop.

  “Zack?” Judy hollered. “Zack?”

  “Shhh!”

  It was Mr. Kimble. The janitor. He was standing in the center of the shop, slowing uncoiling cable from the drum on a mechanical winch.

  “Where’s my son?” Judy whispered.

  Kimble gestured at the hole in the floor.

  108

  “Say the words, Derek,” Grimes hissed.

  Derek coughed. “I can’t.”

  “Say them!”

  “Don’t, Derek!” Meghan pleaded. “They want to kill us! I don’t think they can if you don’t say their stupid words.”

  “Silence, foolish girl! Derek?”

  “Yes, sir?” He wheezed.

  “My grandfather is counting on me. I am counting on you.” He fed him his first line: “O, magnus Molochus.”

  All Derek could do was hack up another cough.

  “Derek?” He could see the rage boiling up in his director’s very disappointed face.

  “Maybe if you extinguished the charcoal, sir,” he suggested. “I’m allergic to smoke.”

  109

  Zack was descending slowly, sitting in a rope harness attached to the winch line.

  Suddenly, he was hit by a spotlight. A follow spot, like they used in musicals so you could see the star better.

  Or in prison movies when people tried to escape.

  “It’s the Jennings boy!” screamed Grimes. “Badir? Jamal? Shoot him!”

  Zack threw up his hands. “Wait! Don’t shoot! I was born under a full moon, too!”

  “What?”

  “I was born under a full moon! I would’ve told you sooner but I just found out. My mother told me.”

  He heard Derek hacking up a storm.

  “Let Derek go. He’s too sick to say your words. I’ll do it! I’ll say it!”

  Grimes hesitated.

  “O, magnus Molochus!” Zack shouted. “See? I almost have the script memorized.”

  For some reason, Grimes looked at the floor.

  Then Zack heard the most hideously grisly voice say, “He will do. He will do just fine.”

  110

  Judy, Mr. Kimble, and Meghan’s mom were kneeling on three sides of the open trapdoor.

  Zipper sat on the fourth side.

  “What’s Zack doing down there?” Judy asked.

  “Bein’ mighty brave, you ask me,” said Mr. Kimble.

  She looked around the scene shop. Saw the crate. Read the stenciled warning.

  “Then we’d better help him!” She stood up and dragged the box closer to the trapdoor.

  111

  Zack pretended he was the one operating the cable, lowering the harness.

  “Let Derek go!” he said to Grimes as soon as his feet touched the floor. Or else I’ll change my mind.”

  Again Grimes looked to the floor. “Grandpa?”

  Zack could see through the floor. Down below, there was an old man with a purple towel wrapped around his head. The throbbing glow from a fire smoldering under his feet deepened the furrows in his face and made him look terrifying.

  “Can I let the other boy go, Grandpa?” Grimes asked.

  The demon under the floor sneered up at Derek. He flicked out his tongue. “Fine.” He huffed. “Let the coward run away. He won’t get far.”

  “Hey!” Derek protested. Then he heaved a raspy wheeze.

  Zack put his hand on Derek’s shoulder. “Go upstairs, Derek.”

  “What? I want to help you guys!”

  “You know, I’ll never forget when we first met,” Zack said, sounding all choked up. “How you gunned your little truck.”

  “What?”

  “Go upstairs. Play with your truck.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Go. Gun. Your truck.”

  Derek stared at Zack. Zack raised his eyebrows. Twice.

  “Oh.” Finally. Derek understood what Zack was trying to tell him. “Yeah. My truck. Good idea.” He bolted for the open door, running faster than anyone with allergies should be able to.

  “How you holding up?” Zack whispered to Meghan.

  “This is scar
y, Zack. They want to toss us on the grill.”

  “I know. It’s what they did to Juggler Girl. Mr. Kimble told me.”

  “Silence!” Grimes shouted. “We have wasted enough time. The dog moon has risen. It is time for the hounds of hell to rise with it! Say the words.”

  Zack needed to buy a little more time. Not much. Just enough.

  “Hakeem? Hand him the scroll!”

  The swarthy man handed Zack a rolled-up tube of ancient papyrus.

  “Recite the words!”

  Zack adjusted his glasses and dropped the scroll. The brittle document shattered.

  “Whoops. Sorry!”

  He bent over to pick up the pieces off the floor. Scanned the room. Two guys with guns.

  He wished there was only one. They’d have a better chance with just one. Two was going to be tough. He looked up at the trapdoor.

  Very tough. Maybe impossible.

  “Hurry up, Zack Jennings!” snarled a familiar demon: Mad Dog Murphy. He and his electric chair were under the floor with the others. “I told you I’d be comin’ back to get you, boy!”

  They’d have one chance. One shot.

  “Mr. Jennings?” said Grimes. “Recite the words! Now! Miss McKenna? Prepare to enter the vast unknown!”

  “No!” said Meghan. “I won’t do it. You can’t make me!”

  One of the thugs raised his gun, pointed it at Meghan’s heart. He cocked the trigger. Zack heard the sharp metallic click.

  “Wait!” said Zack. “If you shoot Meghan, Moloch won’t get his live human sacrifice!”

  “Give me that gun!” Grimes wrestled the revolver out of the muscleman’s hand. “The boy’s right! The ritual will only work if we exchange their lives for the lives of those down below.” He hurled the pistol into the fire pit under the grill.

  The gunpowder inside the shells exploded like lethal popcorn. Zack heard five bullets ping against metal.

  Good.

  Meant they only had one gun now.

  “Are you happy, little Miss Movie Star?” Grimes screamed. “Nobody’s going to shoot you. We’re just going to roast you alive like my father tried to roast me! Like he roasted my sister!”