"You! You there!" the old lady shrieked. Reaching them, she pointed an arthritically gnarled hand and finger at Jackie. "You tell your mother I'm calling the cops. I don't have to put up with that! He threatened me! That's assault and I'm going to press charges if she doesn't do something about it."
"Whoa! Whoa! "Jackie exclaimed, holding his hands up in surrender. "What are you talking about?"
"What am I talking about?" the woman asked incredulously. She paused and seemed to think better of her reaction. "Well, I guess you wouldn't know, not living here, but I tell you, your little brother is a monster! He threatened to kill me! And your mother lets him drive her car all over creation all by himself, but he can't be more than thirteen if he's a day. When I came over to speak to them about it, the boy went crazy-he threatened to kill me! " She reiterated the last part as if it were the most unbelievable thing she could think of.
Jackie and Chalice exchanged glances. "Where's my mom now?" Jackie asked the woman.
"I don't know. And that's another thing! I haven't seen your mother around in weeks. That brother of yours is always coming and going, in and out of that bulkhead cellar door on the other side of the house. But your mother hasn't been around or I'd have given her a very good piece of my mind, I can tell you that."
Jackie walked away from the old woman, across the front lawn, and around the corner of the house. Chalice and the neighbor followed.
"God only knows why he's in and out of that cellar nearly every day, and sometimes at night, and quite frankly, I don't care!" the woman ranted at Jackie's back. "But I do care when the law's being broken and people's lives are being threatened and endangered because your mother can't keep a rein on that little hoodlum-"
She was cut off by a loud metallic squelch as Jackie opened the bulkhead door. He immediately put his hand to his mouth and nose and staggered away from the door, coughing to the point of almost vomiting. The neighbor and Chalice reacted similarly a moment later when the stench from the cellar reached them. The smell was the worst thing Chalice or Mrs. Trank had ever experienced, but not so for Jackie. He knew that scent. He'd smelled it before-thirteen years before to be exact.
Jackie stripped off his T-shirt and bunched it over his mouth and nose. Not wanting to, but knowing he had to, he started down the steps into the cellar.
"What is that god-awful stink?" the neighbor lady asked no one in particular as she gathered her apron up to her face and followed Jackie. Not to be left behind and not having any extraneous clothing on, Chalice covered her nose and mouth with both hands to ward off the rancid odor seeping from the cellar, and followed.
"It smells like something died down here! " the neighbor said behind Jackie.
"Someone did," he muttered under his breath, voicing the worst fear of what he expected to find in the basement. It was dark. He fumbled in the air for the string to a bare lightbulb he knew was hanging from the ceiling, in addition to the one whose switch was at the top of the stairs. His hand brushed it, instinctively recoiled from the spidery feel of it on his skin, then grabbed it again and pulled it.
The light came on and Jackie immediately regretted it. Behind him, Mrs. Trank and Chalice screamed simultaneously, expressing the shock and horror the mute Jackie shared.
"Mom" was the only word he could choke out before the room began to spin and the floor was suddenly in his face. Chalice's scream ended in a squeal of distress when Jackie collapsed. She immediately knelt over him, weeping large tears that plopped onto his face and fluttering eyelids.
Mrs. Trank took no mind of Jackie's faint, nor of Chalice's ministrations to him. Her scream ended with Chalice's, but she stood transfixed by the sight of the mutilated body of Diane Nailer lying on an old Ping-Pong table. There were two more bodies on the floor in the corner. They had all been gutted and flayed, like the deer her husband used to hunt and bring home every year, butchering them like this on her kitchen table. Only this was worse; these were human beingswho had been butchered as if for a feast. And it was an old feast by the looks of it. Diane Nailer's insides had been picked clean, leaving a shell of moldridden, rotting skin over a fractured skeleton. Only the flesh on her face and head remained, decomposing, yet still recognizable. Her eyes were open and staring directly into Mrs. Trank's own.
Suddenly, Mrs. Trank saw something that made her throw her hands in the air, give out a horrified, gasping shriek, and flee the basement, back up the stairs and outside as fast as her arthritic legs could carry her. Chalice helped Jackie to his feet and followed. They found the old lady outside, standing bent over by the side of the house, mumbling, sobbing, and clutching her keys as if they were a rosary. She looked as though she might be ill at any moment.
"Mrs. Trank,"Jackie said, trying to regain his equilibrium. His face was wet with tears and his words were unsteady with the effort of keeping emotion in check. "You've got to call the police and show them this. Tell them to get over to the former Grimm Memorials Funeral Home in Northwood, too, as quickly as they can, or more people are going to die." He grabbed her shoulders and made her look at him. "Do you understand what I just said?" he shouted at her.
Sniffling, her face scrunching up for more tears, she nodded.
"Good. Go. Now,"Jackie commanded. He gave her a solid push in the direction of her house and she went. He turned and said to Chalice before heading for the car, "Maybe you should go with her."
"Where you goin'?" she asked, running after him.
"Grimm Memorials!" He opened the car door and got in.
"Fuck that! I ain't stayin' here! " Chalice hurried to the passenger door as Jackie brought the engine roar ing to life. She barely got in before he backed it out of the driveway, pedal to the medal, tires screeching.
Being in such a severe state of shock, Mrs. Trank only managed to carry out half of what Jackie Nailer asked her to do. She called the Sunderland police and reported finding Mrs. Nailer's body, but it took her nearly twenty minutes to do so. The first few times she called, she was too hysterical to speak and the 911 operator hung up on her. Finally she regained enough composure to get out the address of the Nailer house and the information that there were murdered bodies in the cellar.
The part about telling the police about Grimm Memorials Funeral Home slipped from her memory like snow from a slate roof and melted in the heat of all the trauma and turmoil she'd been subjected to. It wasn't until after the police had been at her house thirty minutes, questioning her after removing Diane Nailer's and the other bodies from the scene, that she suddenly remembered to tell the young officer interviewing her what Jackie had said about the Grimm Memorials Funeral Home.
With less than nine months of experience on the force, the young detective went to ask his captain if he should send a Sunderland cruiser to Grimm Memorials or call the Northwood police since the funeral home was in their town. The captain, who had never had to deal with anything as horrible as what he'd seen in the Nailer's basement, had more than enough to handle. He told the young detective to call the Northwood P.D.
As soon as the young detective left Mrs. Trank alone, she went upstairs to her bedroom closet and took a shoe box down from the shelf above the clothes rack. Inside was her husband's U.S. Marine-issue .45-caliber handgun. She placed the box on the bed, opened it, and removed the pistol from the airtight plastic bag and took it out of its richly grained and scented leather holster. Doing just as her husband had instructed many years ago-long before his death-she checked the chamber and made sure it was loaded. Her husband always said having an unloaded gun in the house wasn't much use in an emergency.
Awkwardly, Mrs. Trank put the muzzle of the gun upside down in her mouth so that the bottom edge of the barrel rested against the roof of her palate. Just before she pulled the trigger, she saw again the image that had driven her from the Nailers' basement earlier, the image driving her to eat a bullet now-the mutilated body of Diane Nailer, her dead eyes blinking, looking at her, the dead mouth speaking in its dead, horrible voice, asking: "Hungr
y?"
The memory hastened Mrs. Trank's finger on the trigger.
Bad things are happening.
Virginya woke to the strains of Creedence Clearwater Revival's "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" and an assault of horrible images from the witch.
A gray-haired woman with a really big fork stuck in her chest, propping her up like a statue-
A table piled with raw meat and flesh that used to be human ... that used to be Jackie's mother. Poor Jackie-
A woman with a gun in her mouth. She pulls the trigger-
Ginny flinched from each image, jerked in her seat as if struck by an unseen hand.
So many bad things. So many, so bad!
But worse than anything, worming its way deep into Ginny, gnawing at her courage and sanity, was the witch's total and unrepentant joy at the evil she wrought. She loved to be wicked. It gave her, and thus Ginny, more pleasure than anything Ginny had ever experienced before.
For Ginny, there was nothing more frightening than feeling so good about being so evil.
Jackie took the turn onto Dorsey Lane Extension. "I don't want to go in the main way," he said to Chalice's questioning look. "We can leave the car by the troll bridge and try to approach the house unnoticed ... if we can."
"The troll bridge?" Chalice asked, a puzzled expression on her pretty face.
Jackie smiled sadly. "Yeah. Another witch thing. She made me see a troll under this bridge up ahead and it attacked me. Clawed me pretty good, too. Almost scared me to death until Jen broke the spell. Just like that"-he snapped his fingers-"the troll was gone, my scratches were gone, and everything was back to normal."
"Wow," was all Chalice could comment.
Tears welled from Jackie's eyes and ran down his face. When he spoke again his voice was thick, rough. "I had almost forgotten how horrible the witch was ... until I saw ..." He couldn't finish. The tears came faster.
Chalice touched his arm, not knowing what to say. She decided to try and change the subject. "You really saw a troll?" she asked softly.
Something in her voice made Jackie look at her. She had a slightly wistful smile on her face. Jackie shook his head. He could tell from her expression she thought seeing the troll was cool, but she had no idea. Her Gothically inclined persona equated scary with cool, but the fear, the sheer terror the witch generated, went way beyond cool to a terror so cold it could freeze air.
"I wish I could've seen that," Chalice said softly, more to herself than to Jackie.
"Don't!" he shouted, angrily, hot tears spilling from his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Chalice said, startled, not understanding his reaction but feeling shame and guilt anyway.
"Don't wish for things you know nothing about! Believe me, nothing about any of this is cool. You think it's cool that my mother is dead?" he half shouted, half sobbed.
Stung by his words, Chalice burst into tears, mumbling, "I'm sorry."
Jackie pulled the car off the road into a small clearing just before and to the left of the troll bridge and put his head in his hands.
"I'm sorry," Chalice said again and reached for him.
"I know," he said and let her embrace him. They clung to each other in silence for several moments.
"I didn't mean that just now," Jackie said.
"It's okay," Chalice remarked. "You were right to get mad. Sometimes I don't think before I say things. Ya know?"
"Yeah," Jackie agreed. He did know. He looked to the bridge, remembering that the tower of the house was visible from it.
Better to park here and walk. IfI run across the bridge fast enough, I might not be seen from the tower.
What the hell am I doing? he fretted suddenly. He felt as if he had just stepped out of a time machine. His insides were churning, causing him to clench his sphincter tightly for fear of defecating in his pants. He wanted nothing more than to turn around and drive away from there as fast as he could and never return. Only the memory of his mutilated mother kept him to his purpose. He fervently hoped not to find Jen and everyone else at the old Grimm Memorials in a similar state.
This time the witch dies! His inner voice did not sound convinced.
"So, what's the plan?" Chalice asked after they'd sat in the car for several minutes with Jackie staring straight ahead and saying nothing. He blinked and looked at her, wrenching her heart with sympathy for the grief and anguish she saw there. She reached out to him, but he shook his head.
"I really am sorry I yelled at you," he said, his voice nearly cracking with emotion. It took him several moments to get it under control. "But I don't thinkyou should come with me. You should wait here for the cops."
Chalice tried to speak, but he held up his hand and went on.
"The way we found my mom, that proves to me that Eleanor Grimm is back. And if she was able to get to my mom who was the most paranoid person about exactly this happening-then she probably got to everyone in that house. If they're not dead, they're under the witch's control, and there's no telling what they might do at her bidding, and not even know they are doing it."
"No," Chalice said quickly. "Why don't we both wait here for the police, okay?"
Jackie turned and looked at the empty road behind them, then ahead to the bridge. He shook his head. "If the witch is back like before, I doubt if the cops will be able to get close to the place in time to do anything. "
"Then what makes you think you will?" Chalice asked.
"Because I think the witch wants me to."
Close. So very close now.
"The children you wanted me to get are ready for the taking."
It is the artist's sister-such a find, this one. The girl has opened up and thoroughly embraced evil like no one she has ever known, save her brother, Edmund. And herself, of course.
"Soon," she says to the girl. "First, I've got some old business to take care of." She reaches out with her host's arm and gently strokes the girl's face, reinforcing commands with every rub. "My little fallen angel," she cooes, calling the girl by the pet name she has come to identify with. The girl likes it, and she likes her for liking it.
Too bad she'll have to be sacrificed.
Oh well! We all can't live forever.
Just me!
Steve Nailer let out a high-pitched braying nasal laughter that Debbie Watson immediately joined in, mimicking him so perfectly they both laughed louder and longer.
The boy with the witch in him was awake!
Virginya slumped against the door as her mother steered the car onto Route 116 to Northwood. The last image of the multitude from the witch was that of the boy whose body the witch had stolen. He was adrift in the vast sea of his own mind, but he wasn't lost, and he wasn't drowning.
He was swimming.
Where?
Back to his body, of course, she realized. Back to the command center in his head where the witch had set up shop and was working all the controls. What he hoped to do when he got there ... She wished him luck; she had her own problems. Like protecting Aunt Chalice. The closer Ginny got to the witch's house, and the witch her self, the stronger she could feel her own powers growing. With every passing moment she saw, felt, and understood more. She knew that Aunt Chalice and Jackie were walking into a trap. In a moment of exhilarating insight she understood how the immense power of the witchwhat she thought of as a vast machine but to Ginny was more like a living spiderweb-worked, controlling people, orchestrating everything. The witch could control several minds at once, but couldn't see Ginny!
Why?
She didn't know the answer, but it gave her a glimmer of hope as long as the witch remained ignorant of her existence and approach. Ginny hoped it stayed that way. She was counting on it.
Jackie walked around the car and Chalice followed. He rolled his eyes at her and slammed the door. "I don't want to argue with you about this," he said as though speaking to a child. He quickly discovered it was the wrong tone to take with Chalice.
"Good!" she snapped, anger flaring in her eyes.
"Then don't." She turned and headed for the troll bridge.
Jackie ran after her and grabbed her arm. "I'm not kidding."
Chalice pulled away. "I'm not either. Look, Jackie, if we're going to be together and make it work you can never tell me what to do ... and vice versa. I can't be with someone who's going to be giving me orders, who's not going to treat me like an equal."
Jackie started to argue, but she cut him off.
"No! I don't want to hear it. I'm sorry about your mom and what happened to you thirteen years ago. I'm sorry I was so insensitive in the car, but I'm not going to stay here while you go in there. If you want to stay with me, I'll be happy to wait, but not without you. If you go in, I go too."
She sold him with the determination in her eyes, and he gave up. "Okay," he sighed. "But stick close, especially once we get inside. If she knows we're coming, and I think she does ... who knows what we'll find? Even if she doesn't-which I highly doubt we've got to be prepared for the worst."
"Worse than your mother?" Chalice asked cautiously.
Tears brimmed Jackie's eyes and he nodded vigorously. He pushed past her and walked to the bridge, leaving Chalice to ponder what could possibly be worse than seeing Mrs. Nailer carved and picked as clean as a holiday turkey. Jackie stood at the edge of the bridge and looked across. He was surprised at how short it was; in his nightmares and memory it was much longer-miles long. In his dreams, it was sometimes endless. In reality, he estimated it was less than ten yards long, and about the same width. And the brook it spanned was little more than a gully with a muddy path through the deepest part of it.
What's that? He noticed something in the mud-a depression. It looked like ... a footprint ... but a footprint of nothing ... human. It was elongated and figure-eightish in shape with four long spiky toes.
Just like the troll had thirteen years ago!
He took a frightened step back. At the same moment, far and faint, he thought he heard cackling laughter. He looked again at the footprint, but it was gone. There was nothing there.
Grimm Reapings Page 28