Secret Circles yrj-2

by F. Paul Wilson

  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 souls 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 tree line. 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 Tonight 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 arm lock 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.

  “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.

  Nervous? 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 middl
e 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?