Camp Arcanum

by Josef Matulich

  “Initiating on my mark,” said Marc. “Three—Two—One—Mark!”

  Marc sprinted out of the bushes at the property line and into the rain-filled gutter. He laid down his mechanic’s crawler like a boogie board in the surf and slid on his belly towards the car. Using a stroke similar to a land-bound doggie paddle, Marc made good speed in the water-filled gutter. He was beside the Lexus in seconds, a significant effort since he carried over sixty pounds of equipment.

  Rolling onto his side, Marc doffed his backpack and pulled out a compact hydraulic jack. He wedged it under the round bulge of the car’s rear differential and started ratcheting the lever. The Lexus rose slowly but surely until its tires were two or three inches off the ground.

  A pair of telescoping jack stands came out of Marc’s pack next. He set them on the rear axle on either side. When they were in place and squarely set on the asphalt, Marc hit the jack’s release valve. The luxury car settled securely on the stands.

  He slipped the jack from beneath the car and set it beside him on the crawler. As quickly as he could in two inches of water, he splashed his way along the gutter to the front of the luxury car. It only took a few minutes for him to repeat the process with jack and stands. When he was done, all four tires were roughly two inches off the ground. Marc ran a hand under the tires to check clearance, then paddled back downstream to his hiding place on the property line.

  He rolled into the bushes with his crawler and backpack and switched on his headset to talk again.

  “The cookie sheet is greased,” he told his co-conspirators. “We are ready to mix the dough.”

  * * * * *

  Michael crouched behind a Victorian display case on the first floor of St Germaine Hall. It was dark and quiet as a grave. The plaster and lathe wall was cold as ice against his back.

  It could be worse, he thought to himself. I could be in the basement.

  The cherry wood and glass cabinet was filled with grotesque masks and figurines from around the world. An African hunting fetish inside the case was practically eye-to-eye with Michael. It, like most of the other objects in the case, seemed to be watching him. Its huge eyes, shark’s mouth of pointy teeth, and bloody spear collectively gave it an image of ferocious lunacy. Michael was afraid to look away, certain in his heart of hearts that it would move when he did.

  He really regretted the number of horror movies he’d been watching lately.

  He jumped at the sound of his radio, as much as he could wedged between wall and cabinet.

  “Roger, Keebler One,” Michael replied. “Mr. Pink is on it.”

  Michael took out the cell phone Marc had given him specifically for this mission and speed-dialed the number labeled only as “T.” A nasal, irritable-sounding voice answered on the other end

  “If you’re ready—Mister . . . Tweak,” Michael said, “it’s time for the first call.”

  “It’s Tweak,” the voice snapped. “Just Tweak. And if you call me ‘Just Tweak,’ I’ll jack up your phone bill with a five-hour phone sex call to Kuala Lampur.”

  Marc had told a few stories about the Phone Phreak, and it sounded like Tweak could bring about the Fall of Western Civilization with a payphone, a pop tab, and a gum wrapper. Michael did not want to cross him.

  “No problem there, uh, Tweak.”

  “Damn straight,” Tweak grunted. “The first call, that’s the one coming from his office, right?”

  “That’s it, Tweak.”

  “Okay. Take the other phone I gave you and hit ‘pound star star,’” Tweak said. “I’ll do the driving from there.”

  Michael wedged the first phone between his ear and shoulder as he punched in the sequence in the second.

  “There we go,” Michael murmured. He looked back up at the display case and felt his heart leap up into his throat. He couldn’t be certain, but it looked like the hunting fetish’s spear was a quarter of an inch lower than the last time he had looked at it.

  * * * * *

  As Marc’s little buddy punched in the command codes, Tweak bound his long blonde and grey hair in a ponytail. Girding his loins for battle, as it were. A quick swipe of his glasses on the tail of his favorite “War Hamster 40K” tee-shirt and he could see well enough to make a quick visual survey of his mobile command center.

  It was spread out now in a hotel room in Milpitas. To put himself in the right state of mind, he had tweaked the hotel’s cable system into giving up several hours of free pay-per-view porn. The video vixens played on the TV behind him as he checked the final connections on the three laptops, his home-brew phone switcher, and assorted bits of scavenged tech. It was all modular and lightweight and could be packed in his minivan in ten minutes. By the time anyone realized they’d been pranked, he could either be in Silicon Valley or Nevada. That was the way he liked it: strike quickly and leave no trace.

  The call rang through on a Frankenstein kluge made of an old-style modem and handset. Rubbing his lucky Cap’n Crunch whistle, Tweak hit “enter” on one keyboard and escorted the call into his system. The call appeared on the screen as a bright red dot on a map of the phone cable grid of North America. As the dot blinked in its parking orbit over Arcanum, Tweak coded a series of electronic filters for Michael’s voice. When he was done, the twitchy white boy would sound like a three-hundred-pound black linebacker.

  Tweak launched the call across the state towards Toledo and up across Michigan. A red line on the map depicted the call’s travels through fiber-optic trunk lines. The call careened across Canada, ricocheted off of Toronto and south into upstate New York. After several bounces like a pinball, the call slipped under the defenses of a Homeland Security switchboard in Philadelphia, a personal coup for Tweak. It then took a circuitous route back to Ohio to rouse a deserving victim from sleep in Arcanum.

  * * * * *

  The phone rang on the antique mahogany nightstand of Jeremiah’s bedroom. Though the sound pierced his sleeping mind immediately, Jeremiah didn’t stir until the second ring. Groaning like a bear prodded from hibernation, Jeremiah switched on the Tiffany lamp and fumbled for the phone.

  He brought it up close to his face and blearily looked at the caller ID, which read:

  J. STONE, ARCANUM UNIV

  0300 AM

  That cut through the fog of sleep and caused his entrails to clench. He hit the talk button.

  “There had better be a good reason for calling me at three a.m.,” Jeremiah snapped, his usual simpering purr gone completely. “Why are you in my office?”

  “I’m sorry to disturb you, Professor Stone,” the stranger said in a deep, rumbling voice. “This is Officer Hardaway with the University Police. There’s been a break-in at your office.”

  He leaped out of the king-sized sleigh bed and felt the bracing slap of cool air on his naked body. Normally, he would have thrown on the dressing gown that laid across the foot of his bed, but a sense of urgency drove him straight to his dresser.

  “What’s happened?” he grunted as he tried to open a drawer while he held the cordless phone against one shoulder. All of the furniture had come from his great-grandfather’s estate: heavy, hand-carved mahogany worthy of the robber baron the old man had been. It had always given Jeremiah a sense of history and a smug satisfaction. Right now, it was just too large and in the way.

  “The office has been ransacked,” Officer Hardaway continued in his diffident tone. “We need you to come down and identify what is missing or damaged.”

  Jeremiah finally found decent trousers, socks, and underwear. He started pulling them on as he spoke.

  “Don’t touch anything,” Jeremiah said. “I’ll be right down.”

  He’d hung up before the officer could dare say anything to the contrary.

  Jeremiah dressed quickly, throwing on a university tee-shirt to cover his upper body. He slipped into a pair of Italian loafers and threw the phone on the bed. He was out the door and down the stairs within seconds.

  * * * * *

  Michael swi
tched on his radio by touch; there was no way he was going to take his eyes off the toothsome doll now.

  “Keebler One, the dough is mixed,” Michael said. “It’s time to make the cookies. Over.”

  Marc’s voice, distorted by the commercial band radio static, responded in his ear:

  “Roger that, Mr. Pink. It’s all up to Tiny Baker One, now.”

  “Acknowledged, Keebler One,” Eleazar chimed in through his radio. “Camilla’s in the henhouse.”

  That was not one of the agreed-upon code phrases, but something Eleazar must have made up on the spot. Michael shrugged and pulled himself to standing. Both of his feet were filled with the sensation of pins and needles, and the muscles of his legs ached from the hours of inactivity.

  He backed around the display case, being careful to keep his eyes on the fetish and anything else in the case that seemed to have eyes. When he was satisfied that nothing was going to escape, Michael carefully backed down the hall to his next checkpoint on Marc’s master plan.

  * * * * *

  Eleazar lurked in the hallway just across from Jeremiah Stone’s office. He was practically wrapped in shadows, garbed in a black fencer’s shirt, pirate pants, and soft-soled leather boots. Even his flaming red hair was tucked away under a ninja-approved black cap. At one with the darkness, he watched as the housekeeper finished her chores within the office.

  Eleazar, hearing her approach the door, ghosted around the corner unseen and unheard. He maintained direct surveillance of the door with a hand mirror held discretely at the wall’s edge.

  The ponderously slow woman rolled her cart out of the office and clucked to herself as she checked over her cleaning supplies, thus inspiring Eleazar to code-name her Camilla after Gonzo’s chicken paramour.

  Eleazar silently set his rubber chicken on the floor and poised a toe behind its featherless tail.

  Camilla turned out the light and rolled her cart down the hall. Without a backwards glance, she pushed the door to close itself.

  Eleazar kicked the rubber chicken across the floor. He had spent nearly an hour, earlier that evening, specially waxing his chicken just for such a purpose. The slick latex fowl reached the doorway just in time for the door to close around its neck, preventing the lock from engaging. Blessed with foresight, Eleazar had disabled the chicken’s squeaker.

  Eleazar waited until Camilla rolled around the corner to move. He then stealthily crept up to the door and slipped into the office. He pulled his rubber chicken in after him.

  “R-r-r-r-rubber Chicken—” Eleazar trilled to himself, “one thousand and two uses.”

  Eleazar pulled a sheaf of printed papers from his black shoulder bag and scattered them around the office like a ticker-tape parade. He then silently disarranged the furniture: settling the wing chair on its side just so, knocking over the lamp and Egyptian statues on the desk. He even pulled the picture of the goofy-looking bald man with the pyramid hat off the wall and dropped it in the potted palm. Satisfied that he had convincingly staged the crime scene, he flipped on the lights.

  It was then that he saw the woman’s portrait behind Jeremiah’s desk. The painting was raw and hard-edged, the young woman lean and lithe and extravagantly naked. She could have been Jeremiah’s twin from facial resemblance. They certainly wore similar amounts of eyeliner.

  Eleazar would have liked to study it, for art history purposes only, so that he might relate it to Michael. He only had seconds though, so he pulled down the painting and placed it in the potted palm besides the man in the eye and pyramid hat. Eleazar slipped out of the half-opened door like the ren faire ninja he was. Once he was safely around the corner, Eleazar radioed in to his Fearless Leader.

  “Tranquility Base to Keebler One. Tranquility Base to Keebler One,” Eleazar said with hushed urgency. “The chicken has landed.”

  Michael stepped into their private conversation, sounding upset about one thing or another.

  “Tranquility Base?”

  “You got to be Mr. Pink!” Eleazar complained.

  “Radio silence, boys,” Marc snapped over the radio. “We’re just waiting for the cookies to throw themselves in the oven.”

  * * * * *

  Jeremiah hurried out the front door and tried to work the keys in the front lock. His second attempt was successful. He walked down to his car, carrying on a conversation with himself. He couldn’t work out who would have done this, could have done this and circumvented his normal channels of intelligence.

  “Not Morescu . . . or Kaighan. They wouldn’t have a clue what—” Jeremiah muttered. “But it can’t be anyone local. How did this happen without my seeing it?”

  Jeremiah had an unsettling feeling that there was something rotten directly under his nose, but he couldn’t tell what it was. He decided to leave speculation for the time he could actually see what had been done.

  Jeremiah unlocked the Lexus, got behind the wheel, and started the engine. Without checking fore or aft, he floored the accelerator. With luck, he could be in his office in less than ten minutes.

  There was the roar of the engine and the whine of spinning wheels, but no movement. At first, Jeremiah was even more puzzled. He revved the engine a few times to confirm it was running. The tachometer needle moved with each application of pressure to the pedal, but the speedometer clung to zero.

  Jeremiah set the cruise control at twenty-five miles per hour and opened the door. He didn’t step out in case this was some involved perceptual trick to get him to jump out of a moving car. The pavement seemed to be stationary and a quarter from his change holder dropped on the ground stayed right next to the car.

  Jeremiah leaned out and looked back at the rear wheel on the driver’s side. He could see the wheels eagerly spinning—but two inches above the ground.

  “Who would . . . could do this?” A new wave of confusion and anger swept over him, building up to an absolute cold fury.

  “I will make someone regret this evening ever happened,” he promised quietly.

  Jeremiah shut off the ignition and climbed out of the car. As he closed the door, a green taxi pulled up beside him. Its driver leaned across the front seat and shouted out the passenger window.

  “You Jeremiah Stone?” His accent announced him as one of the many African refugees new to the area.

  “I am.” He was not in the mood for a conversation of more than two words.

  “You needed a taxi? Right?”

  “No,” Jeremiah said reflexively. Then, he realized that was exactly what he needed. “But I suppose I do. Who called you?”

  The African rolled his eyes and pulled out his clipboard.

  “You did,” he replied in a tone that was frustrated, patronizing and uneducated. “Sheet shows the call came from this address. Don’t you know what you do, sir?”

  Jeremiah’s eyes narrowed.

  “I know much more than you could possibly hope to, my man,” Jeremiah huffed. “Can you get to St. Germaine Hall? At the university—as soon as possible?

  “I’ll get you where you need to go,” the driver said with a broad smile. “Just hop in back.”

  Jeremiah got into the taxi with a grimace. He’d seen public toilets in Eastern Europe that were cleaner than this.

  * * * * *

  The taxi came to a stop with a lurch. Jeremiah was braced for the sudden deceleration, having spent the seven-minute ride with one hand on the strap above the window and the other braced against the back of the front seat. He tried to touch the rest of the taxi with as little of his body as possible. He was out of the cab and sprinting through the rain for the steps of St. Germain Hall instantaneously.

  The taxi driver started to protest. Jeremiah pointed at him and barked a quick command.

  “You will wait for me! I’ll need a ride home.”

  “The meter’s running, mister!” he shouted back through an open window.

  Jeremiah was able to unlock the building’s front door in the first attempt. He pushed his way through, jogged up
a half flight of stairs, and made his way to his office as quickly as one could in the dark.

  As he came around the last corner, Jeremiah saw his office door was ajar and the lights were on. He made an awkward turn through the door and came to a sliding stop.

  There were papers strewn everywhere and his desk was in disarray. Even his portraits of Aleister Crowley and Cassandra had been pulled off of the wall. Strangely, everything else, like his file cabinets and the books, seemed to be in place. Officer Hardaway was nowhere to be seen.

  “What could those cretins be looking for?” he asked out loud. “Test scores?”

  Jeremiah went to the filing cabinet. Pulling on the handle to the top drawer, he found it to be still locked. A quick check proved they were all locked. With an expanding sense of irritation, Jeremiah snatched a paper from the floor. In the very center of the page was a single line of four-point type. Jeremiah took a magnifier from his desk to read it.

  It was all done by elves, the paper read.

  He picked up a second piece of paper.

  The message on this one read: I screwed back.

  The phrase was familiar; someone had threatened him with a variation just this week. Then he remembered: Marc Sindri. Someone had worked out a spell that made Sindri invisible to all forms of supernatural surveillance and totally unmemorable. But this reminder undid that.

  “Auntie Musetta,” Jeremiah murmured to himself, “you’ve been a naughty girl.”

  Jeremiah was impressed with the skill and the artistry in Musetta’s act of treachery. He was even smiling as he contemplated it and his revenge—up until the moment his office door slammed closed.

  * * * * *

  Eleazar pulled the door shut and held it in place as Michael pounded the first wooden wedge into the space between the door and jamb with a rubber mallet. Once he had two in place on the hinge side, Eleazar joined in, pounding wedges in on the side with the latch. With teamwork and dedication, the two rendered the door impassable within seconds.

  Eleazar and Michael sneaked away, both barely able to stifle their laughter. The doorknob jiggled, then rattled. After that, the pounding and shouting began.