Strange Magic

by Gord Rollo

  “I understand that…honest I do, but there are things you don’t understand. Doug was into the occult. Hell, both of us were, but he was into it deep! Meditation, Ouija boards, séances, self-hypnosis, lucid dreaming, mind reading, telekinesis…you name it; he was involved. Both of us believed in the power of the human mind, in a great untapped resource within all of us, just waiting for someone to swing open the right door within our subconscious and walk on in. I think Doug found it.

  “There were things he could do, Susan…some illusions he pulled off that just weren’t possible. Disappearances, mind-reading abilities, levitations. Things he wouldn’t tell me about, things I just couldn’t explain. You know that new magician people are raving about lately…Criss Angel? He’s really good, but there’s something about him that just isn’t right, if you know what I mean. He’s tapped into some power outside of this world. Can do things no one should be able to. Doug was like him, but even better. He terrified me sometimes, especially the more he started drinking. With magic…nothing’s impossible, Susan. Nothing! He believed that, and so do I. He’s alive, I know he is, and he’s out there somewhere coming for me.”

  “Stop it, Wilson. You’re scaring me now.”

  “We’ve got a lot to be scared about. I know you don’t believe me, but you have to trust me and there’s only one way I can think of to prove to you I’m right.”

  “How?”

  “I know where he was buried. It’s in Jamestown, New York, near where we trained at Lucius Barber’s house. Less than three hours from here. I never went to the funeral, but I know where he is. It’s time I went back. If he’s there, you win, and I’ll call the cops or do whatever you want about this guy who’s threatening me. Deal?”

  “Okay. And what if he’s not there?”

  Wilson had no answer.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  NIGHT FALLS FASTER

  It ended up being after lunch, 2:10 P.M. by the dashboard clock, before Susan backed the Honda out of the driveway and she and Wilson began their trip to the Jamestown cemetery. They’d taken Amanda out of school early and left her over with the Hendersons, although she’d kicked up a hell of a fuss, wanting to come along on what she thought was to be a fun family outing. If only she knew the truth.

  “Did you bring a shovel?” Susan asked.

  “I brought a few tools, but no shovel. We won’t need one where he’s buried.”

  Susan had no idea what that meant but decided to let it go. “Are you sure about this?” she asked, still not convinced they weren’t about to make a big mistake. Not only was this idea slightly crazy, but also potentially illegal if they were caught tampering with a grave site.

  “Yes. I need to know, Susan. This is driving me nuts and I have to know what we’re up against…man or monster.”

  “Monster? Come on, Wilson. Surely you don’t believe—”

  “If the Heatseeker has returned from the dead, what else would you call him? I have to know for sure. We have to know. Right?”

  Susan didn’t answer. She didn’t have it in her to argue with her husband but there was no way she was buying into his theory about who was threatening him. No way. Someone was out there, and from everything Susan had seen and heard, they were highly unstable and dangerous, but whoever it was, he was a man. Maybe a jealous ex-friend or a deranged fan, but there was no way the Heatseeker was Wilson’s old partner, Douglas Williams. This was the real world and no matter how much Wilson had convinced himself he knew the truth, Susan wasn’t going to accept it. She’d only agreed to come to help Wilson accept the truth and to keep him from getting in trouble. After that, they could start figuring out what to do about their real problem.

  They rode most of the way in an awkward silence, something quite unusual for them but perhaps for the best. The tension was thick between them today; the stakes higher than they’d ever known and neither really knew how to deal with it. Wilson badly wanted a drink, of course, but pushed that thought as far away as his stressed mind would allow.

  There are more important things in the world than alcohol, right? Right?

  Jamestown wasn’t far away, distancewise, but Highway 62 North onto 17 West, the route they traveled to get there, took forever to drive, the traffic crazy and the roads twisting and turning more like a roller-coaster ride than a proper highway. Still, they made decent time, uncertainty and fear urging Susan to drive faster than normal, pulling into the city limits bang on five o’clock.

  Jamestown was an old industrial city that had a small-town feel to it. It had once been tagged with the lofty title “Furniture Capital of the World,” but those thriving days were long gone, leaving behind a quaint, family-oriented community that was neither fast paced nor particularly boring. It walked a fine line between past charms and modern conveniences and would likely be described as “just right” by most of the 35,000 people who lived there.

  Unfortunately, Wilson didn’t share their enthusiasm. It had been twenty-two years since he’d last been in this city, but there were no warm feelings about returning, no nostalgic thoughts about better days gone by. No, all Wilson wanted to do was confirm his worst fears, convince Susan he hadn’t gone completely loony, then get the hell out of this shithole as fast as they could. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned. In, out, gone.

  “Where we going?” Susan asked.

  “Lake View Cemetery…it’s easy to find. Just head for the high ground. Take a right on Main Street. Should be a couple lights up.”

  Susan followed Main Street north, heading uphill until Wilson directed her to hang a right on Buffalo Street, then a quick left onto Lake View. The cemetery sat on one of the highest spots in town, and it was easy to see why it had been given its name. Looking directly west, the dark blue waters of Chautaugua Lake filled their vision, looking stunning under a late-afternoon sun that was slowly diving into the deep end of the lake and setting the cloud-covered horizon ablaze. Susan parked the car in the empty gravel lot and shut off the engine, but they hesitated getting out. Both knew there was no turning back now, but were stalling the inevitable.

  “Ready?” Wilson asked, touching his wife’s hand. He noticed his hand was trembling far more than hers.

  “Sure. Let’s do it.”

  Wilson leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, then got out to meet her at the front of the car.

  Lake View Cemetery wasn’t huge, by city standards, but it sure wasn’t small either. Hundreds of rows of headstones spread out around them to the north and west, a seemingly unending pattern of marble, stone, and brass dominoes just waiting for the first gentle push to begin the chain reaction of destruction that would topple the lot. Finding one specific grave in this endless field wasn’t going to be easy.

  “This will take forever, Wilson. There must be ten thousand graves here. Maybe more.”

  “True, but you’re forgetting something. Doug was pretty famous. Not everywhere, but here in Jamestown he was. If you go down to city hall, you’ll find a picture of him on their wall of fame. This cemetery has a special section reserved for town founders, public officials, and other influential people who’re buried here. We’ll find Doug’s grave…” Wilson paused to look around, then pointed to where a dozen aboveground concrete mausoleum-type crypts were grouped together. “Over there! Let’s go.”

  The Stranger parked his borrowed truck several houses down the street from Susan’s place on Derby Hill, pausing to wipe his sweaty forehead with the tail of his untucked shirt before climbing from behind the wheel. He wasn’t feverish with sickness; no, it was the sweat of pleasures promised running down his cheeks, of soon-to-be-realized dreams, of unbearable anticipation. The waiting game was nearly over now and his excitement was building by the minute, making the tall man want to jump out of his skin and scream at the top of his lungs. He wouldn’t do that, of course. He would stay in command of his dark desires, in control for as long as he needed to.

  He’d taken a hot shower and was dressed much more app
ropriately today, having found half a closetful of men’s clothes in the house he’d taken over. The clothes might have been Kathleen Pruit’s dead husband’s or perhaps just a former renter’s leftovers; who knew, but they fit his tall, lanky body fairly well all things considered, and faded blue jeans and a beige button-down shirt wouldn’t get nearly as much attention as his black leather outfit did.

  Stepping away from the pickup, the Stranger began calmly walking toward the front of Susan Kemp’s home, the madness and rage within him contained, but just barely. He forced a smile on his pallid face as he passed a neighbor outside watering her front flowers in what looked like her best Sunday dress. The young woman nodded and smiled back, then pretended to go about her business but the magician could see she was still watching him closely out the corner of her eye.

  Seeing that Susan’s car wasn’t home put a dent in the Stranger’s plans and he almost decided to call it off and return to his truck but he was sick and tired of playing this game of cat and mouse. The trunk of secrets might be enjoying the fear they were stirring up in this little community, but he just wanted to get his hands on the ultimate prize. Today was the day he’d been dreaming of for a long time, and nothing, not even a nosy neighbor, was going to deny him what he was owed. Seeing as he was already here, he may as well check to see if anyone was home. Maybe he’d get lucky. After all, it wasn’t Susan he was here to see. It wasn’t Wilson either.

  The tall magician rang the bell three times, his anger building to volcanic proportion when no one came to the door. Damn it! They’d slipped by him again. He was close to putting his fist through the front screen when a woman’s voice spoke from behind him.

  “Excuse me,” she said. Not surprisingly, it was the well-dressed nosy neighbor who’d been watering her flowers. “Are you looking for Susan?”

  The Stranger cranked up his fake smile and turned on the charm. “Why, yes. I’m an old friend of Susan’s husband and I’m new in town. My, you look awfully pretty today. Love that dress.”

  The neighbor took the bait, grinning sheepishly. “What, this old thing? Thank you. Didn’t I see you dropping off Susan’s little girl the other day? Not that I make a habit of spying, mind you, but I just happened to look out when you pulled up to let Amanda out.”

  Sure you don’t, you gossiping bitch, the Stranger thought. I’ll bet there isn’t a thing happens on this street you don’t know about. “That was me, all right. Like I said, I’m an old family friend. Say…you wouldn’t happen to know where they are, would you? It’s kind of important I find them.”

  “Actually, I’m not sure where Susan went. She and Wilson took off together a few hours ago, but I did hear her saying they had to pick up Amanda at school and drop her off at the babysitter’s, so maybe the Hendersons can tell you where they went.”

  “The Hendersons?”

  “Yes. Edith and Earl. Really nice older couple. It was me who introduced Susan to them, actually. They live over on Milberry Lane, about three blocks that way. Can’t miss their place; it’s the big stucco house on the corner.”

  “Why, thank you, ma’am,” the Stranger said, the smile on his face genuine now. “You’ve been a huge help. More than you’ll ever know.”

  “No problem. Make sure you say hi to Edith for me.”

  “Oh, I will. You can count on it.”

  Although it was still early, only 5:30 P.M., the sunlight was starting to fade as Wilson took Susan by the hand and led her toward the mausoleums. Wilson’s grandmother on his mother’s side, Annie Wilkins, bless her miserable old soul, had lived to be ninety years old, spending seventy of them living next door to the graveyard in North Tonawanda they eventually buried her in. She used to tell Wilson when he was a kid that night always falls faster in a cemetery, so he’d better keep his eyes on the sky and his wits about him or he’d end up lost in the dark with a bunch of dead people. Annie was crazy as a bedbug by then, of course, and Wilson had tried his best to ignore everything she said, but looking at the rapidly darkening sky tonight he thought maybe the old bird wasn’t far off the mark with that one.

  Murky clouds the purple-black color of fresh bruises were settling in over Jamestown for the night, threatening rain soon. Wilson hoped they’d hold off until they’d at least had a chance to check out what they needed to. The wind was picking up a little too, a chill in the air just enough to remind everyone that summertime was officially over.

  Together they walked, slogging through deep emerald green grass badly in need of cutting, stirring up the late-season mosquitoes into a feeding frenzy around their feet. There were also freshly fallen leaves underfoot that cracked with the sound of pulverized bones, but none of these things bothered Susan and Wilson. Not the clouds, or the wind, or the bugs, or the leaves—they had their minds on the task at hand, both silently wondering what they might find in the next few minutes.

  But first they had to find the Heatseeker’s grave.

  As it turned out, the small mausoleums containing the remains of Jamestown’s elite unexpectedly held more than one body. They were bigger than they’d first appeared from the parking lot too, each memorial the size of a large backyard shed and holding upward of a dozen people, all interred within their own concrete slots in the walls. On the outside four walls were the brass or matching concrete doors identifying the person inside. These small doors were sealed shut once the caskets had been slipped into their final resting place and that was how they were intended to stay. Susan and Wilson decided to split up and walk around each building, checking all the nameplates individually. Wilson spotted the one they were looking for long before he was close enough to actually read the name on the door.

  “There it is, Susan. Over there, bottom row.”

  “How do you…” she started to say, but then saw what Wilson had already spotted. Fear closed off her throat and wouldn’t let her finish her sentence.

  On the bottom row of the next mausoleum to their left, one of the nameplates said:

  GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN:

  DOUGLAS ADAM WILLIAMS

  1962-1988

  The door was slightly but noticeably crooked, the seal around it broken at some point in the past. When Wilson and Susan walked nearer, they could see someone had shabbily repaired the damage, and tried to reseal the crypt, but even to their untrained eye, it was obvious the mortar used around the door was different than all the other doors, a different shade of gray and much fresher, and the person who had applied it had no idea what they were doing.

  “Someone opened this wall up, Wilson,” Susan said, her voice quiet but still loud in the silent graveyard.

  “Yeah. Definitely. They weren’t careful about it either. Smashed the crap out of it and half-assed fixed it later. I’m gonna need my tools.”

  “What? Why? You’re not going to do what I think you are I hope?”

  “You have a better idea? We have to know if he’s still in there, Susan. There’s no other way to know the truth. Stay here. I’ll be right back.”

  “Wilson you can’t…wait!” Susan tried, but before she could argue, Wilson was running back up the hill toward the parking lot and digging around in the Honda’s small trunk. He returned a few minutes later, out of breath and white as a ghost, with a crowbar and a mini sledgehammer.

  “Don’t do this, Wilson,” Susan pleaded, her hope that this trip would put an end to her husband’s fears all but gone now. “You’ll end up in jail, for God’s sake!”

  “I have to know the truth, damn it! We need to know, so stand back. This won’t take long.”

  Wilson moved in close and it only took three smacks of the sledge for the steel bar to work its way deeper into a crack in the seal. The ringing noise was loud, but not as bad as he’d expected. He set the hammer aside and, using all his weight as leverage, pulled down on the crowbar. The crack along the top edge of the door split farther. Wilson worked the bar loose and repeated the same steps on both sides of the door as well, and the fourth time he threw his weight agains
t the bar, the seal broke and the small door snapped open. Instead of falling to the ground as Wilson had thought it might, the door lay down flat on hinges set into the bottom edge.

  “Hurry, Wilson,” Susan said. “We gotta get out of here before someone shows up.”

  “I know…I know,” Wilson said, crouching down low to the ground to try to look inside the chamber. There was a faint unpleasant smell inside the shaft, but it was more of a musty, stale smell than anything rotting or decayed. “Hmmm…well there’s his coffin. Pretty tight fit. Might be hard to get it out.”

  “Get it out? What? The coffin? No way. He’s obviously still there, Wilson. Haven’t you seen enough?”

  “Not yet.” Wilson reached inside and gave the handle a yank, just to test it out, and was surprised when the casket moved about an inch. Obviously there were rollers either on the coffin, or inside the concrete slot. “Wait, it’s moving! Just give me a sec.”

  With a mighty pull, Wilson rolled the casket halfway out if its concrete enclosure, making sure he stopped its progress before it reached the tipping point. The last thing he wanted was for the entire box to dump out onto the grass and burst open at their feet. Just to be sure, he pushed the coffin back in a few inches, not needing it exposed that far anyway, because this particular casket had a duel-hinged lid with a section that lifted to reveal just the head and torso of the person within.

  Wilson wasn’t exactly sure how to open a sealed coffin, having no idea how the morticians went about locking them in the first place, but it only took him a glance to see that it wouldn’t matter.

  Doug Williams’s casket wasn’t locked.

  Not anymore, anyway. Once it surely must have been, but there were deep scratches and part of a broken brass latch hanging on the side of the coffin from where someone had repeatedly hammered their way inside. Whoever had broken into the crypt chamber hadn’t been satisfied just getting inside, they’d apparently went all the way and broke into the locked coffin as well.