Jack: Secret Circles

by F. Paul Wilson

  Weezy’s expression became stony. “I’d really like to see the rest of the place.”

  “Sorry. Not included.”

  Jack gave her another be-cool look. He saw her take a deep breath and set her lips in a thin line. But as they passed between the front room and the rear conference room, she froze.

  “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?” Jack hadn’t heard a thing.

  “It sounded like a child.”

  Jack’s skin tingled. He almost said he’d heard something like that right outside last night, but held back. He wasn’t supposed to have been right outside last night.

  A heavy, dark oak door stood closed to her right. She pulled it open, revealing a stairway down to a dark basement.

  “What is this, now? I thought we agreed you would confine yourself to what I showed you.”

  “But I heard—”

  “You heard nothing. You are merely looking for an excuse to hunt for your imaginary artifact.”

  Weezy stood at the top of the stairs, eyes closed, listening. But what ever sound she was waiting for never came. Mr. Drexler pushed the door closed and gestured toward the rear of the Lodge.

  “Thanks for the tour,” Jack said as they reached the back door.

  Weezy said nothing.

  On the way out he noticed the rear door was steel too, with a double-key dead bolt to boot. He figured he might be able to pick it, but man, oh, man …

  Sure. Easy enough to say he’d steal it back, but if he got caught he was certain the Lodge would use all its many connections in high places to make sure he was prosecuted to the max.

  Breaking in here … an awfully big step. Risky. He’d be crazy to try.

  Had to be another way.

  4

  “I know I heard something,” Weezy said as they walked across the lawn.

  Jack told her about what he’d heard last night.

  “A cat?” she said when he finished. “That didn’t sound like any cat to me.”

  “I didn’t hear it, so I can’t say. And you didn’t hear it again.”

  She sighed. “No. I guess it could have been something else.”

  He waited until they’d reached the curb before saying, “Maybe it was the pyramid crying out to you—because they’ve got it.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re sure?”

  “What do you think: The mantel is dusty but there’s a hexagon of clean wood right where I saw something black and pointy.”

  She spun and started toward the Lodge. “I’m going back!”

  He grabbed her arm. “And do what? He won’t let you in. Probably won’t even answer the door. Let’s not tip our hand.”

  “We’ve got to find a way in there!”

  “Easier said than done. He hardly ever goes out, and even if he does, the place is locked up like Fort Knox.”

  “We’ll think of something. And we’ll do it together.” She put out her hand. “Deal?”

  “Deal.”

  They shook.

  “And while we’re thinking,” she said, “maybe we should take another look at the big pyramid—for inspiration.”

  “You think it’s the same one in the painting?”

  “I’d bet my copy of the Secret History of the World.”

  “But you don’t—”

  “If I did, I would.”

  “And what do we hope to find there? Another little pyramid?”

  Her dark eyes sparkled. “That’d be nice. No, I’m thinking we might find evidence of what ever was kept in there—maybe remains of the thing itself. Another piece of the Secret History. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “It would,” Jack said, looking back at the Lodge, “but I’ve got to finish up the weeds and trim all the bushes by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “Why then?”

  “He won’t say so, but I think it has something to do with the equinox.”

  Weezy glanced toward Mrs. Clevenger’s place up the street. “Did you get the warning?”

  “About staying out of the Pines? Yeah, Walt told me all sorts of weird things can happen in there. What do you think?”

  Weezy smiled. “I think we’re obligated to check it out.”

  “I thought you’d say that.”

  “We’re on?”

  “Of course. I’m not letting you have all the fun.”

  Jack felt a little uneasy about ignoring Mrs. C’s warning, but he couldn’t back out and leave Weezy to go on her own.

  But really … they knew the woods. What could happen?

  5

  I must be crazy, Jack thought as he slipped along the hedge separating Mr. Rosen’s yard from the Vivinos’.

  After dinner, he’d picked up the video camera at USED, then ridden out here. His bike now was leaning against the far side of Mr. Rosen’s trailer and the camera hung by its strap from his shoulder.

  He found a spot behind a big spirea. Its dense tangle of fine branches offered good cover. It sat within earshot of the house, so he settled down to wait.

  Alarms kept ringing in his brain, warning him about how much trouble he’d be in if he ever got caught. He knew they were right but he ignored them. He had to. He’d committed himself to this. For Sally and her mother.

  Save them, Jack. I can’t do it, so you’ve gotta. Save them.

  Yeah, and for Tony too.

  A spotlight from the house shone on the pool area. The gate on the chain-link fence was closed. A pink beach ball sat between a pair of lounge chairs.

  In the house, all quiet except for voices from the TV filtering through the window screens. He tried to identify the show but couldn’t.

  He’d skimmed through the camera manual and reviewed what he’d read. Not much to operating the thing: turn it on, sight through the viewfinder, and press the little red REC button.

  He felt torn as he sat and listened. Part of him hoped for peace and quiet in the Vivino house hold to night, and another knew that if he didn’t expose the mistreatment, it would go on and on.

  But how to expose it? Assuming he did capture something damning on the tape, what to do with it? Send it to a newspaper?

  Nah. That wouldn’t work. They’d probably give it to the police, and without Mrs. V’s cooperation he’d be back to square one.

  He had a brief fantasy about sneaking into the cable-TV company’s studio and running it on the local access channel. Hardly anybody watched it, but enough would see the tape to start talking about it, spread the word about what was going on in the Vivino house, and pretty soon everyone would know. And if everyone knew, Mr. Vivino would have to change his ways.

  But that was a no go. Even if Jack could sneak into the studio or the control booth, he wouldn’t know how to put the tape on air.

  The Freeholders? Maybe send the tape to the Board of Freeholders and let them know what they were allowing into their midst. But was that enough?

  Jack decided to shelve it for now. First he had to capture something. If he didn’t do that, the other questions didn’t matter.

  As he waited in silence, he noticed a flicker of light near the western horizon.

  Lightning?

  The sky was clear except for clouds to the far west, and the moon hadn’t risen yet. The murky glitter of the Milky Way arched overhead. Didn’t look like rain, but he hadn’t listened for the weather before going out, so he didn’t—

  Another flicker. No question—lightning. Another storm on the way. Weren’t they ever going to stop?

  He thought he saw movement in the front yard, beyond the glow from the lit windows. He squinted through the darkness but didn’t see anything out of place or that shouldn’t be there.

  Then he caught the stench.

  He knew that stink. The hulking shadow they’d seen in the Pines last month had smelled just like this. The odor seemed to be all around him, like an invisible cloud. He couldn’t tell where it was coming from, because the air was so still. That meant it could be close. Very close.

  Then Mr. Vi
vino’s voice broke the silence. “What on God’s Earth is that? What’s that smell?”

  The stench must have drifted inside. The front door opened then and Mr. Vivino stepped out on his steps and looked around.

  “God! Did something die out here?”

  “Is it a skunk?” Mrs. V called from inside.

  “No. I’ve smelled skunk and this is no skunk.”

  Jack shrank back as the man came down the steps and began walking around his yard.

  Don’t come over here!

  But he did just that.

  As Mr. Vivino approached, Jack looked frantically about for an escape route but had none. Couldn’t go through the hedge—too much noise. Couldn’t run—no cover. No choice but to stay put.

  So he crouched in the deep shadow at the base of the bush and wished he had a hole to duck into. He tried to make himself as small as possible, curling into a tight fetal position with his forehead down against his knees. The starshine didn’t offer much light and Mr. Vivino had just come from indoors. His eyes wouldn’t be adjusted yet.

  Jack tensed as he heard footsteps approach. His bladder wanted to empty. If Mr. Vivino found him here, no telling what he’d do. He outweighed Jack by an easy hundred pounds. If he lost that temper of his …

  But worse than a beating would be what would come after: caught with a camera outside someone’s home. Everyone would think he was a Peeping Tom, he’d be labeled a perv—

  The footsteps stopped on the other side of the bush, not two feet away. Jack held his breath and watched the shoes turn this way and that.

  He heard Mr. Vivino sniffing the air. The odor had faded.

  “I’ll be damned,” he muttered.

  “Did you find anything?” Mrs. V said from a second-floor window.

  “No, not a thing. Maybe just a cloud of stink passing through from the highway.”

  “Do you think it was dangerous? I mean, toxic?”

  “Nah. Didn’t smell chemical, it just smelled … ripe.”

  Ripe … perfect word for it, Jack thought. Now turn around and go back inside.

  After a couple of seconds, Mr. Vivino did just that.

  But Jack didn’t move. Even after he heard the front door slam he remained curled up.

  And while he hid there he thought about the exchange he had just heard between Mr. and Mrs. Vivino. They’d sounded so normal, so much like a regular couple that Jack wondered if he’d imagined the violence he’d seen.

  No, he hadn’t imagined anything.

  So … could that be the way they were? He gets mad and beats on her and whacks and yells at Sally, and then in the times between they’re just Mr. and Mrs. Average American Family?

  Very strange.

  But what ever, he’d had enough to night. More than enough.

  The rumble of thunder in the distance only underscored his need to be gone from this place.

  He uncoiled slowly and sniffed. No stench. He checked the front yard: all clear. Same with the back—

  He took a second look. Hadn’t he seen a pink beach ball between the two lounge chairs before? No biggie. A breeze probably rolled it away.

  He squeezed through the hedge into Mr. Rosen’s yard, found his bike and headed toward the safety and sanity of his own home.

  And it was pretty sane, wasn’t it. Talk about the Average American Family. He had a rock-steady father who worked hard but always made time for him, a stay-at-home mother who volunteered at the hospital and called him her “miracle boy”—and though he hated the term, he recognized the love behind it. Two parents who hardly ever argued—or if they did, kept it out of earshot.

  He would have liked to live in a bigger town, one with at least a movie theater and a McDonald’s within bike distance. But on the upside, Johnson was a town with no crime, where most folks never locked their doors.

  They weren’t rich and he didn’t have everything he wanted—like a rifle—but he didn’t lack for anything meaningful, including a great sister. The only fly in the ointment was his jerk brother, but nothing was perfect. And Tom was away at law school, which made him almost bearable. Whatever family bumps Jack had encountered along the way had been minor—certainly nothing like a death or even a serious illness to contend with.

  He felt like he lived in a peaceful bubble. He wondered if it would ever pop.

  Never, he hoped.

  WEDNESDAY

  1

  Jack, Weezy, and Eddie walked through Old Town toward the lightning tree.

  After more rain last night, the lake was way past its banks now. It would be leaking onto the streets soon, and then into people’s basements. Because Old Town sat uphill from the lake, the water would flow west. Jack’s house was blocks away, but who knew where and how fast the water would flow once it hit the streets?

  “Something’s got to be done about this,” he heard his mother say.

  She, along with Mrs. Connell and a few other ladies from town, was walking behind them, all headed to volunteer in the big Cody Bockman search.

  “We should talk to the Freeholders about pumping it out,” Weezy’s mom said.

  Pumping it where? Jack thought. Into the Pines? That’s going to take a monster pump and one long, long hose.

  One thing was certain: If it kept raining, someone was going to have to do something.

  Lots of cars were parked up and down Quakerton Road. The locals were turning out in big numbers. After crossing the bridge and walking through Old Town, he was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of hundred people of all ages gathered around the police cars near the barkless, burned-out trunk of the lightning tree.

  He saw Walt and his sister, Mrs. Bainbridge, Jeff Colton from Burdett’s Esso station, Mrs. Courtland, one of his lawn-mowing customers, plus Professor Nakamura and his wife.

  He glanced at Weezy and saw her glaring at the professor. They’d left the pyramid in his care to be examined by experts, and had never seen it again.

  “Come on, Weez,” he said in a low voice. “I know you’re ticked at him, but let’s keep this morning about Cody, okay?”

  She glanced at him, then nodded. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right.”

  Even blubbery bully-boy Teddy Bishop and his pal Joey had shown up—Jack figured they were here more for the day off than out of any concern for Cody.

  Many in the crowd were drinking coffee or sodas and munching donuts or breakfast sandwiches—the Krauszer’s down on the highway must have done a land-office business this morning—and most were talking, smiling, some even laughing.

  Come on, people, he felt like saying. This isn’t a picnic. We’re here to search for a kid who’s most likely dead.

  He noticed a couple of arms waving in the air from the far side of the crowd and recognized Karina and Cristin. Karina was wearing her engineer’s cap again.

  His spirits lifted at the sight of her. As Jack waved back, Eddie said, “I think she’s got the haaaaahts for you, Jack.”

  “Hots?” Weezy said, straightening and looking around like a dog that just heard a strange noise. “For Jack? Who?”

  “Karina Haddon.” Eddie pointed. “Right over there.”

  Weezy looked and said, “Oh. She’s on our bus.” She frowned at Jack. “She doesn’t look your type.”

  Swell.

  “What’s my type?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, looking a bit flustered. “I just didn’t think it would be a hippie.”

  “She’s not a hippie.”

  “Well, she dresses the part. Remember what you told me about me being a goth because I liked black—”

  “And Bauhaus and Siouxsie.”

  “’If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck …’”

  “I hardly know her.”

  “But do you like her?” The answer seemed important to her.

  Could she be having the same reaction to Karina that he had to Carson?

  Jealousy? he wondered.

  Most likely not. But something close. A queasy, offcourse feelin
g that things might be changing between them, that they might lose the special bond they’d shared for so many years. High school, with all the new people it was pushing into their lives—pushing between them—seemed to threaten that bond.

  Was she now getting a taste of that too?

  Everything seemed in flux—people dying, people and things disappearing … he didn’t like change. He wanted everything to stay the same—wished Johnson could be kept in a bottle like Kandor in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude.

  Well, Jack wasn’t going to lie to her. “Yeah. I like her. She’s cool.”

  Weezy stared in Karina’s direction.

  “Cool?”

  2

  The state cops and the deputies divided the crowd into groups. Jack had to decide whether to go with Tim Davis’s group, or edge over and hang with Karina. His mother and her friends were directed toward another group. He settled on Tim. Weezy and Eddie were there and he felt they should stick together. After all, they knew Cody. Karina and Cristin did not.

  “All right, listen up, everybody,” Tim said to the thirty or so people gathered around his patrol car. He had a map spread out on the hood. “We took the area around where we found Cody’s bike and divided it into a grid. Our group has been assigned a specific square of that grid. We’re going to walk out to the spot, and when we get there I’ll show you what to do.”

  He took the lead on the fire trail that led away from Johnson. People followed in groups of two and three, speaking in low voices. The party atmosphere had dissipated.

  “I hope we find something,” Eddie said.

  Weezy folded her arms tight across her chest. “I know what I don’t want to find.”

  “What?”

  “Cody.”

  “I second that,” Jack said. “Been there, done that, don’t want to do it again.”

  He couldn’t help thinking about finding the body in the mound last month. What a shock—hadn’t expected to dig up anything like that. He and Weezy and the rest of Johnson were still dealing with the fallout from that discovery in different ways and to different degrees. No doubt about who it had affected most: Weezy.