Or was it simply a loony conversation between the town’s two looniest characters?
5
Jack’s resolve to see this through, so strong this afternoon outside the VFW post, had begun to slip with the fading of the daylight. Only Tony’s dream words pushed him out the door and up 206 to the Vivino house.
Just as he had last night, Jack left his bike on the far side of Mr. Rosen’s trailer, stole across his backyard, and squeezed through the hedge onto the Vivino property. He was about to settle behind the same bush when he heard Mr. Vivino’s voice from inside. He was shouting.
Jack froze and squeezed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see this. He wanted to be back home in his room reading Stephen King or H. P. Lovecraft or The Spider, lost in a book where the horrors and dangers could be stopped in their tracks simply by closing the covers. Not here where real people were feeling real pain and real fear and he was powerless to help.
He felt the weight of the camcorder in his hand and realized he wasn’t powerless.
Clenching his teeth and ignoring the crawling in his gut, Jack turned on the camcorder as he edged forward and peeked in the window where the voices seemed the loudest. He gasped when he saw Mr. Vivino behind his wife, holding her in an armlock again and pressing her against a wall.
“I’m sick of it, goddammit! Sick of it!”
Jack’s hands shook as he raised the camcorder, sighted through the viewfinder, and hit the record button. A little red REC lit in the upper left-hand corner of the image just as Mr. Vivino pulled her back and then slammed her against the wall. She had her eyes squeezed shut as pain distorted her features.
“How many times do I have to tell you not to—”
“Stop-it-stop-it-stop-it!” Sally screamed as she rushed into the room and clung to her father’s arm. “Stop-it, Daddy!”
A flick of his arm shoved her away. She tripped over her feet as she stumbled back and hit the floor.
Mrs. V screamed, “Sally!” and twisted like a tigress in her husband’s grasp, elbowing him in the gut.
He oomphed, but instead of letting go, he threw her to the floor and kicked her, screaming, “Don’t you ever hit me!”
Jack was so shaken by the violence he lost his grip on the camcorder, allowing it to slip from his grasp and clunk against the windowsill.
Mr. Vivino whirled toward the window. “Wha—? Goddammit, someone’s at the window!”
Didn’t have to think, didn’t have to decide—Jack spun and raced toward the hedge and dove headfirst through the branches into Mr. Rosen’s yard. They scratched his face and caught on his clothes but he landed on the far side before Mr. Vivino saw him.
He hoped.
Over his shoulder and through the branches he saw Mr. Vivino lunge into view at the window.
“He went next door! I’ll get the son of a—!”
He disappeared and Jack jumped to his feet. The crazy madman was coming for him!
He looked around. What to do? His first instinct was to run around to the other side of the trailer, grab his bike, and race like mad out of here. But if he tried that he risked Mr. Vivino spotting him.
Had to hide. But where?
Like last night, too early for the moon, so he had darkness on his side. He saw the big propane tank nestled against the side of the trailer. He looked under and around it but saw no space big enough to hide.
A door slammed at the Vivino house.
“I get my hands on you, I’m gonna tear you apart!”
Oh, crap!
No place to hide on the ground, how about up? No trees—but the trailer had a flat roof.
Swinging the camcorder around so its strap encircled his throat and the cam hung between his shoulder blades, Jack hopped up on the propane tank and levered himself onto the roof where he immediately flattened himself against the damp sheet metal—just as Mr. Vivino fought his way through the hedge.
Swearing and cursing in a steady stream, he moved to the front of the trailer and started banging on the door.
“Rosen! Rosen, you nosy old bastard! Was that you? Were you peeking in my window?”
He kept pounding and shouting, but no one but Jack was listening. The only house within earshot was Mr. Vivino’s own.
Finally he stopped, and Jack had an awful thought.
My bike!
If he searched around the other side of the house he’d find it. He wouldn’t recognize the BMX as Jack’s, but eventually he’d find out.
But no. Muttering to himself, he headed back to his own yard. Jack didn’t wait around as he had last night. He eased himself down to the propane tank and from there to the ground. He ran around to the other side of the trailer, grab bed his bike, and began pedaling north on 206—away from Johnson. He’d go about a mile, then double back. He’d look like he was returning from the circus.
The circus … He wondered if the sheriff’s department was looking into the Michigan thing and if they’d found anything. He was glad he’d mentioned it to Tim. He’d helped there.
He touched the camcorder dangling from his neck. And he could help even more here. All he had to do was find a way to let the vets see this tape at their smoker tomorrow night.
A tall order, one he had only a vague idea of how to fill.
But he’d find a way. He owed it to Tony. But more important, he owed it to Sally and her mom. They were the ones living through that hell.
6
Later on, back home, he hid the camcorder in his room, then went back and stuck his head into the living room where his folks were watching Remington Steele. Just another private eye show to Jack, and not a very good one, but he suspected his mother liked watching Pierce Brosnan. And Dad probably didn’t mind looking at Stephanie Zimbalist either.
He said good night and headed for his room. He closed the door and sat on the bed. He’d promised to meet Weezy for their equinox excursion into the Pines but didn’t much feel like it. After what he’d seen to night, he wanted nothing more than to pull the covers over his head and hide. If he slept, he wouldn’t have to think about it. But he’d probably dream about it.
Maybe the simple, natural purity of the Barrens would clear his head.
He climbed out the window. As he eased his bike from the garage and walked it toward the street, he wondered at the strange way events had been connecting lately.
If Weezy had never found the pyramid in the mound, Jack wouldn’t have started digging to find another, and wouldn’t have found the corpse. If he hadn’t found the corpse, Freeholder Haskins might still be alive. If Mr. Haskins were alive, Mr. Vivino wouldn’t be running for his vacant seat and wouldn’t have visited Jack’s house with Sally Saturday night, awakening memories of Tony. And without those memories, Jack might not have peeked into the Vivino backyard Sunday night. And if he hadn’t done that, this tape wouldn’t exist.
A strange sequence of events that could be traced directly back to the pyramid. So many incidents—including all those deaths—circled that mysterious little pyramid.
Where would it end? Would getting it back change things for the better? Or make them worse?
Maybe if they got it back he could convince Weezy to rebury it in the mound where they’d found it. Put the genie back in the bottle, so to speak.
Yeah, he thought with a shake of his head. She’ll go for that. Uh-huh.
7
They met up at the lightning tree and Weezy led him into the Pines. The bright, rising moon lit the trails while casting deep shadows beneath the trees.
“Look!” she cried after they had traveled no more than a hundred yards or so. “Lumens!”
Three pine lights, varying in size from a Ping-Pong ball to a basketball, drifted in a line along the treetops to their right, heading south.
Mr. Collingswood had mentioned them and Jack had seen some last month when those mysterious men had been excavating the mound. No one knew what they were. He’d heard them explained as St. Elmo’s fire or swamp gas, even heard they were the so
uls of dead pineys back for a visit. Mrs. Clevenger’s words about “odd phenomena” came back to him, and how “odd” might be a gross understatement.
Curiosity urged him to follow, but he hesitated, hearing Walt and Mrs. Clevenger’s warnings about being in the wrong place during the time of the equinox.
Then he saw another pair of softball-size lights skid by overhead, moving in the same direction as the others, and that clinched it.
“Let’s go!”
Following wasn’t easy. The firebreak trails didn’t always match the direction of the lights, but whenever they came to a fork, they angled toward the lights. Luckily the lumens didn’t seem to be in a terrible hurry to get wherever they were going, if anywhere. But Jack sensed a direction, almost as if they had a purpose. But of course they had no purpose. They were just balls of light.
As he and Weezy traveled, more and more lights joined the procession until they were following a couple of dozen or more. Some moved more quickly than others, zigzagging past the slower ones, like cars on a highway. They seemed to have a definite purpose now, gliding through the dark, weaving from tree to tree along the topmost branches as if following signposts.
“Jack! Isn’t this wonderful?”
He wasn’t so sure. He felt a gnawing sensation in his chest. Had anyone ever seen anything like this? Then he noticed the silence. The Barrens were a noisy place, with animals, birds, and insects constantly hooting and crying and chirping, the breeze rustling the bushes. All that was gone now. Even the crickets were quiet. It seemed like the whole place was holding its breath.
The good thing was he didn’t feel threatened. The bad thing was he didn’t know what to expect.
The thing he least expected was for their line of lights to meet up and merge with another line from the east. But it did, just up ahead of them.
They mingled awhile, then began to flow toward the south.
All except one …
A soccer-ball-size light stayed behind, then began drifting their way. Jack noticed Weezy’s rapt expression as it neared. He felt a strange tightening in his chest. He gripped her upper arm.
“I don’t like this.”
“I do.”
It sank to about a dozen feet off the ground and hovered before them.
“The lumen … it’s humming, Jack! Like music.”
Jack heard a high-pitched hum. His hackles rose and his skin tingled as if the air was charged with electricity. He broke out in a cold sweat.
“Let’s get out of here.”
But Weezy didn’t budge, even as the lumen came closer. She reached out a hand, as if to touch it, but Jack snatched it back.
“Don’t!”
“Why not? I—ew! It smells.”
Jack caught it too, a sour stench somewhere between stale sweat and spoiled meat. It turned his stomach and caused a growing sense of dread. He’d smelled it before and he knew what it meant.
They weren’t alone.
“It’s not the lumen.”
Where was it? He gave a frantic twist left and then right, but didn’t see anything. The stink said it was close by. Levi had said to run if he smelled it—like the hounds of hell’re after you. But which way? Think!
Wait. If he was smelling it, that meant it was upwind. He calmed himself, stood statue still, sensing the breeze.
There—faint against the left side of his face, to the east. He turned in that direction and froze as he spotted a dark, hulking shape standing half in, half out of the shadows of the treeline. It seemed to be watching them and the lumen. Was this the thing that had chased Mr. Collingswood up a tree?
Jack pressed a finger over Weezy’s lips and pointed. In the glow from the lumen he saw her eyes widen and felt her stiffen as she saw the shape.
Without warning, the lumen rose and darted off toward the south, following its kind. Jack didn’t wait to see what the shape would do.
He slapped Weezy on the back and whispered, “Go!”
They were only halfway off their bikes. He hopped the rest of the way onto his seat and began pumping the pedals for all he was worth. He heard a hiss and then something heavy crashing through the underbrush behind him as the tires of his BMX slipped and skidded in the sandy soil. He heard Weezy whimpering in fear as her tires did the same. Finally they caught and he almost screamed with relief as he began moving.
He saw Weezy beside him, grunting with effort.
“Don’t look back!” he said. “Just go-go-go!”
The slightest wobble in one of their front tires now could send them into a skidding crash.
But Jack looked back. He couldn’t help it.
Something big and dark was racing his way through the moon-dappled underbrush. He couldn’t tell if it was running in a crouch or on all fours, but it was fast and it was closing.
Jack put every ounce of strength he had into his legs, pushing as hard as he’d ever pushed against those pedals.
“Go, Weez! Give it everything!”
At least they were headed west, toward Johnson. He just prayed they’d make it.
Why hadn’t he listened? When was he going to learn?
He kept pedaling, leaning over his handlebars, and urging the bike forward. He heard an angry screech but didn’t look back. After traveling somewhere between a quarter and half a mile, and not hearing anything more behind him for a while, he chanced another glance. When he saw an empty trail, relief flooded him.
“I think we’re safe,” he said, “but keep going.”
They didn’t slow their pace until they reached Old Town.
“What was that?” Weezy said, panting as they coasted past the lightning tree.
Jack’s sweat was cooling as he caught his breath.
“A bear … had to be a black bear like Tim said.”
“But it didn’t roar or even growl.”
Right. Instead it had hissed and come after them, then screeched—probably when it had given up the chase.
“A bear,” Jack said. “A weird bear.”
“You’re kidding yourself, Jack. That wasn’t a bear. I’ll bet it’s connected to the pyramid back in the Pines.”
“Weezy—”
“Tomorrow, Jack. We’re going out there tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he said reluctantly. “But in daylight—in broad daylight.”
She laughed. “If you’re expecting an argument from me, forget it.” She sobered. “You know … they say Marcie Kurek ran away, but what if she wandered into the Pines and was grabbed by that thing?”
Jack shook his head. “Then I don’t think we’ll ever see or hear from her again.”
He followed her to her house—he wasn’t simply going to assume she’d get home safe as he had with Cody—and they split with a silent wave at her driveway. A few minutes later Jack coasted into his yard. He slipped in through his bedroom window, then pulled out the videotape. In the hallway he crept to the bottom of the stairs and listened. He heard the sound of the TV drifting down from his folks’ room. They tended to watch the eleven o’clock news, followed by Johnny Carson’s monologue on The To night Show, then shut down and call it a day.
He stole to the downstairs TV, turned it on, then the videotape player, but lowered the sound to zero. He inserted the tape, rewound, and hit PLAY. As soon as the scene of Mr. Vivino with his wife in an armlock lit the screen, Jack stopped. He couldn’t bear to watch it again, but had to be sure he’d caught the incident before proceeding to the next step.
He rewound the cassette to its beginning and ejected it. After turning off the TV and the player, he hid the tape in his room.
What a day. He wanted to talk to someone about it, but couldn’t mention taping the Vivinos to anyone. And as for what he’d witnessed with Weezy, his dad would go ballistic if he knew he’d been in the Pines at night. He didn’t like him in there during the day.
He went to the window and stared out at the starlit sky. Looked like a long night ahead.
THURSDAY
1
/> The videotape cassette had been burning a hole through Jack’s backpack all day at school. Or at least it felt that way. Now at last, after a seeming eternity, he was returning to Johnson.
He’d found it almost infinitely difficult to wave to Sally and Mrs. V this morning as they waited across the street at the elementary bus stop. She’d stood there in her dark glasses and long-sleeved blouse, seeming to pierce him with her gaze as if she knew.
Did she? No way. He’d been out in the dark, she’d been inside in the light. She couldn’t have seen him.
So why had she been staring at him?
Maybe she hadn’t. Maybe just staring through him and thinking of a better life, a life without her husband.
Once in school Jack had hidden the cassette at the rear of his locker’s top shelf. He’d checked on it a number of times during the course of the day. He didn’t know why he was so paranoid. No one but he knew it existed.
He stepped off the bus and headed directly to the VFW post. This was it: Do or die. He had to find a way to get this onto the screen to night. If he failed he’d have to wait until the next smoker. He couldn’t bear the thought of Sally and her mother suffering through another month of what he’d seen last night.
When he reached the post he found the front door wide open. The smell of strong detergent wafted from within.
“Hello? Anyone here?”
No answer.
Almost too good to be true to find the place open and empty. He could just waltz down to the rec room and do his thing—whatever that might turn out to be.
He stepped inside and called again.
“Hello?”
To his dismay, a familiar voice, accompanied by the sound of feet on stairs, answered.
Jack: Secret Circles Page 14