Jack: Secret Circles

by F. Paul Wilson

  “I’m coming, I’m coming.” Walt appeared from a stairwell and smiled when he saw Jack. “Hey, man. What’s up?”

  “I’m cashing in my rain check for the tour.”

  “Oh, hey, I was just about to start mopping the floor downstairs and—”

  “Just a quick look?”

  As Walt hesitated, Jack noticed that his eyes were clearer than he’d ever seen them.

  Then he remembered: Mrs. Clevenger asked him to stop drinking. With all that had gone on since yesterday afternoon, Jack had forgotten about the conversation he’d overheard.

  She’d wanted him to stop because he might be “needed.” What did she expect Walt to do?

  What ever, it looked like he’d listened to her. Jack noticed that his gloved hands were shaking. Ner vous? Or did he need a drink?

  Walt shrugged then. “Sure. Why not?”

  Jack suffered through the ground-floor tour—what did he care about the meeting room and the office? Finally Walt led him down to where he wanted to be: the basement.

  At the moment the rec room was a big open space with a bare floor of dirty vinyl tile. A mahogany bar with beer spigots up front and mirrored shelves behind ran three-quarters the length of one wall. A TV sat on a low cabinet under a squat window. All the chairs and tables were stacked in a corner. A battered wringer bucket sat in the middle of the floor with a mop handle jutting toward the ceiling.

  Walt gestured to the space. “I don’t know why they want the floor mopped before the smokers—these guys are real slobs when it comes to keeping beer in their cups. But if that’s what they want, that’s what they get.”

  Jack wandered over to the TV cabinet and opened the doors. He wanted to make sure he’d heard Mr. Bainbridge right about the new VCR.

  “What’s up, Jack?” he heard Walt say behind him.

  “Just checking out your electronics.”

  Yep. There it sat: a brand-new Panasonic. And next to it a couple of videotape boxes labeled Electric Lady and Pizza Girls with scantily clad women on the covers. He tore his gaze away from them as something clicked in his brain. He looked back at the tape player and his heart nearly stopped when he saw the three letters following the brand logo.

  VHS.

  “No!”

  He checked again. No mistake. It said VHS and the tape slot was definitely too big.

  “Something wrong, Jack? You okay?”

  He was anything but okay, and something was definitely and terribly wrong as he realized what he’d done.

  I screwed up! All that risk for nothing!

  He’d recorded the Vivinos on a Betamax cassette. It wouldn’t play on a VHS.

  “I’m okay,” he managed to say. “Just remembered something I’d forgotten.” He turned and started for the door. “I’ll finish the tour later.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ left to see.”

  Jack didn’t reply as he hurried upstairs and out into the fresh air.

  “Jerk!” he whispered as he broke into a trot up Quakerton Road. “You complete jerk!”

  Mr. Rosen had bought a Betamax camcorder—that was why it had been cheap. Jack had been so tickled to have a video camera at his disposal, he hadn’t paid attention to what kind. And why should he, considering the VCR in his own house was a Beta?

  Dad’s doing. Years ago he’d bought a Betamax, supposedly better than the competing VHS model. Maybe it was, but it lost out to the other format because VHS tapes recorded longer. So most folks used VHS these days.

  But not Dad. He insisted Betamax was better and refused to switch until the current machine died. Why change if it recorded and played back and did everything a VCR should?

  So of course the Vivino tape had played perfectly on his home machine last night—a Beta cassette in a Beta player.

  But it would not play on the VFW machine.

  He had to find some way to turn this around.

  2

  “Hey, I don’t know, Jack,” Eddie said.

  “Just for thirty minutes,” Jack said as he went about disconnecting the Connell family’s VCR from their TV. “Not a second longer, I swear.”

  “But I still don’t get why you need it.”

  “Just running a little experiment between Beta and VHS.”

  In a way that was true. Sort of. Not so much an experiment as a desperate, last-ditch effort to salvage Operation Vivino.

  “What kind of experiment?”

  “I’ll let you know if it works.” He finished unscrewing the VCR’s coaxial cable. “Until then, have you got a blank tape I can borrow? I’ll replace it later.”

  Eddie fished in a drawer and came up with one still in the wrapper.

  Perfect.

  “Need any help?”

  “That’s okay. You hang here and I’ll be right back.”

  Tucking the VCR under his arm, Jack hurried out the front door toward home. He wanted to run but didn’t dare risk dropping the Connells’ VCR—a VHS model.

  The only good thing so far about today was that it was another of his mother’s volunteer days at the hospital. He had the house to himself until she came home. He wasn’t exactly sure when that would be so he had to hurry.

  Once inside he dropped to his knees before the Betamax—already partially unhooked—and went to work.

  First, he plugged in the VHS and attached the cable from its input to the Beta’s output. Then he unwrapped the new VHS tape, inserted it, and hit the record button. The Vivino tape was already in the Betamax, so all he had to do was hit PLAY.

  He waited ten minutes—the scene he’d caught hadn’t lasted even five—then rewound and ejected the tape. After stuffing it in his backpack, he ran outside, hopped on his bike, and began pedaling like mad.

  3

  “Please be there,” Jack muttered as he rolled up the front walk.

  His heart sank as he saw the door closed, but he leaped off his bike, letting it fall, and ran up to the front door. He tried the knob and found it open.

  “Walt?” he called, stepping inside. “You still here?”

  “Still here,” came a voice from the stairwell. “Come on down.”

  Jack did just that and found Walt starting to drag a table across the floor. Jack leaped to his side.

  “Let me help you with that.”

  “Now that the floor’s finally dry,” Walt said as they carried it to the center of the room, “time to move everything back. This one goes right here. Thanks, Jack.”

  “No problem. You need help with the rest?”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Hey, I’m here. Why not?”

  Walt grinned. “Okay. Appreciate that.”

  As Jack helped drag chairs and tables to wherever Walt said they belonged, his gaze kept drifting to the VCR cabinet. He had to find a way to get in there again.

  They were maybe three-quarters finished when a woman’s voice echoed down the stairwell.

  “Walter? May I speak with you a moment?”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, Mrs. Clevenger.” Walt looked at Jack and shrugged. He looked worried. “Be right there.”

  “Go ahead,” Jack said, fighting a grin of triumph. “Take your time. I’ll finish up.”

  As much as Jack would have loved to know what those two were talking about, he had other priorities. So as soon as Walt was out of sight, he grabbed the tape from his backpack and flew to the VCR cabinet. He opened the doors and dumped the Electric Lady tape out of its box, then replaced it with his own. His had no label, but he could only hope no one noticed or cared. He snapped it shut and replaced it in the cabinet.

  Now … what to do with the real tape? He’d have loved to take it home and watch it, but he couldn’t play it on his machine. So he slipped it behind the cabinet. Walt was done with moving furniture for the day, so it would be safe for the present.

  But the tape he’d replaced it with … he hadn’t had time to check it, so he didn’t even know if the video transfer had been successful. For all he knew, they’d be showing a blank ta
pe to night.

  By the time Walt returned, Jack had all the chairs arranged around the tables.

  Walt beamed. “You’re a real good guy, Jack, y’know that?”

  “Nothing to it. Um, what did Mrs. C want?”

  His smile vanished and he looked uneasy. “Not much. She just wants me to hang around somewhere.”

  “Where?”

  “Just … around.”

  Jack could see he was uncomfortable and decided not to push. Besides, he had to get home and straighten out the VCR mess he’d left behind before his mom got home.

  “Hey, what time’s the smoker start?”

  “Oh, guys start wandering in around seven-thirty, but things usually don’t get rolling till about eight. Why? No way you can get in.”

  “Just curious.”

  Jack glanced at the little window above the TV. He knew where he’d be come eight o’clock. But before that, he and Weezy had a date with a pyramid.

  4

  They rode toward the Pines, each with a short-handle spade-shovel from his garage held across their handlebars. The sun was sinking but they had better than an hour and a half of light left. Plenty of time.

  Passing the lightning tree, he saw Gus Sooy’s pickup. He and Walt were leaning against the rear side panel. Walt wasn’t drinking and wasn’t getting a bottle filled, just seemed to be talking. They both waved and Jack and Weezy waved back.

  Was this where Mrs. Clevenger had told Walt to hang out? Was this where he’d be “needed”? For what?

  He shook his head. He’d probably never know.

  As they neared the spong they picked up speed—they wanted to be a swiftly moving target if that piney started throwing rocks again. But as they passed, Jack saw no sticks jutting toward the sky.

  “That piney must have reset his traps,” Weezy said.

  “And it looks like Mrs. Clevenger hasn’t got to them yet. Think we should … ?”

  Weezy shook her head. “Maybe on the way back. We’ll need all the light we can get at the pyramid.”

  Jack wondered again what would happen if the piney caught Mrs. C springing his traps. She was just an old lady, but that dog of hers, even with three legs, looked like he could inflict a world of hurt on anyone messing with his owner.

  They reached the burned-out area and made their way past the ruined mound to the pyramid.

  The clearing was eerily silent as Jack checked out the ground for fresh tracks. He found none of any sort, and even the old ones they’d seen before were gone, erased by multiple rains.

  They hopped over the low stone wall and squeezed through one of the gaps between the megaliths.

  The floor of the cage—if that was what the pyramid was—was no longer underwater, but the sand was still wet. Any trace that he and Weezy had stood here on Saturday was gone. Weezy walked to the four-foot stone post in the center and again traced her fingers along the six-sided indentation in its top.

  “If we had the little pyramid we could fit it in here and see what happens.”

  “Like what?”

  “Maybe the sunlight during the equinox hits it at a certain angle and …”

  “What? We go back in time?”

  She smiled. “Never know.”

  “Until then …” Jack looked around. “Where do we start?”

  She shrugged. “Anywhere, I guess.”

  He chose a random spot near the center post and began to dig straight down. Weezy did the same a half dozen feet away.

  “I’ve got a suspicion about this place,” she said. “If it’s modeled on the little pyramid we found, it should have a base. With all the sand in the Barrens’ soil, water percolates through pretty quickly. The standing water in here back on Saturday tells me something was slowing its absorption.”

  Sure enough—four feet down Jack hit granite. The seventh side. And no doubt carved into its surface somewhere was the seventh symbol—just like on the baby pyramid.

  Panting a little and sweating a lot, he took a break. He hadn’t paid much attention to what he’d been digging out of the hole, so he turned to that now. Using the side edge of the spade he ran it back and forth over the excavated sand, slowly smoothing it out. And as he did, little bones began to appear.

  “Hey, Weez! Look!”

  She hurried over and picked up a few for a closer look.

  “Not bones. Just pieces—splinters, really.”

  “How—?”

  Then he noticed a larger fragment in the wall of the hole he’d dug. He scraped away the sand packed around it and found it bigger than he’d thought. He yanked on it …

  And came away with part of a leg bone.

  “Ew!” Weezy said, recoiling.

  “It’s okay. Not human. Deer.”

  It ran about eigh teen inches long and was very slim. During the course of his countless trips into the Pines, Jack had come across a number of dead deer rotted down to their skeletons. From its angled, ball-tipped end he knew what this was.

  “A thigh bone. But look. The lower end’s broken off.”

  Weezy leaned closer. “Hey, that looks gnawed off. See those scrapes into the bone? They look like teeth marks.”

  Jack looked around. “How did a deer get in here?”

  Weezy gripped his arm. “Jack! What ever was caged here needed food. It would have been fed by its keepers. The Pines were full of deer. What ever it was must have eaten every last lick of flesh and then gone after the marrow.”

  Jack looked at the shattered bones and deep teeth marks.

  “Strong jaws, sharp teeth.”

  No question about it now—this structure had been used as a cage. But why so massive?

  What had called this place home? Obviously a carnivore, but had it been native to the Pinelands, or had someone imported it? And when? This cage had been here a long time.

  Weezy’s eyes danced with excitement. “Let’s keep digging. No telling what we’ll find.”

  But after half an hour or so, shifting their dig sites three times, they’d found nothing but more animal bones. He’d gone about two feet down in his latest dig when the tip of the spade hit something—something bigger than the small bones he’d been finding. He widened the hole and dug around it.

  It seemed to be curved, like some sort of arch. He worked his fingers around it, got a grip, and pulled. With a wrench it came free and he found himself holding a jawbone.

  He dropped it when he realized it was human.

  “Weez! Check it out!”

  She hurried over and together they knelt and stared at it. Jack found himself nowhere near as grossed out as he’d have thought he’d be. But then again, this wasn’t the first time he’d been through something like this. Yeah, he’d felt a shock, but nothing like when he’d pulled that skull from the mound.

  Funny how he’d been thinking just last night about how things seemed to be going in circles, all revolving around the little pyramid, and here he was inside the big pyramid doing the same thing.

  With this skull—or part of one—another circle had closed.

  “Wh-who could this be?” Weezy said. “It looks so much older than the one in the mound.”

  Yeah, it did. Not a shred of flesh left on it. And the teeth—browned, cracked, and not a single filling.

  For some reason he thought of poor Cody. Chances of finding him alive seemed about zero. Someday someone might be digging in the pines and come up with his little skull.

  Jack thrust the thought away and focused on the bone before them.

  “Where’s the rest of it? And what’s it doing in here?”

  He dug further and only an inch or so down found upper teeth and the roof of the mouth—the skull was buried upside down. No fillings in the upper teeth either. He cleaned more off, then worked his fingers around it and pulled the skull free.

  “Ohmygod!” Weezy cried as he turned it over.

  Both stared in shock at the ragged hole in the top of the cranium. Whoever this had been, it looked like his skull had bee
n crushed—cracked open.

  She pointed to the edges of the opening. “Are those … ?”

  Jack looked closer and felt his gut writhe when he saw the gouges around the hole. Just like the tooth marks on the deer bones.

  Something had been gnawing at this skull—maybe even ate the brain inside. Sure. Why else chew on a skull?

  Now Jack was grossed out. He dropped the skull back into the hole and rose to his feet.

  “You think … you think that could have been some sort of human sacrifice?”

  Weezy was on her feet too, shaking her head. “Maybe one of the keepers got too close at feeding time.”

  What had gone on here? No question that something with big sharp teeth had been caged in this space, but what?

  His neck tingled and he did a quick turn to see if someone was watching. Just his imagination, maybe? He’d been thinking about the captive just now and then he’d got that sensation.

  “What’s wrong?” Weezy said.

  “Nothing.”

  He didn’t want to alarm her. He walked the inside perimeter, peering out at the surrounding trees through one gap after another. No sign of anyone. Or any thing.

  But the sensation remained.

  Thunder rumbled.

  Jack shot a look at the sky and saw that the sun was gone and thunderheads were piling in the west. When had that happened? They must have been so engrossed in their digging they’d failed to notice.

  “Are you thinking about that thing that chased us last night?”

  He turned to Weezy. “You mean the bear?”

  “I mean the thing.”

  “Yeah, I guess I am.” He cupped his hands to boost her out of the cage. “Let’s get out of here.”

  She looked relieved. “Took the words right out of my mouth. So much for this pyramid. From now on we concentrate on getting the little one back. But when we do, I’m bringing it back here and setting it in the top of that center column—just to see what happens.”

  As he boosted her up, he said, “Anyone ever tell you you have a one-track mind?”

  “Yeah. I’ve heard that.” She squeezed between two megaliths and turned to offer her hand. “But the truth is I have a multi-track mind. It’s just that one track’s been getting a lot more use than the others lately.”