Secret Histories yrj-1

by F. Paul Wilson

  2

  Weezy returned carrying the family Polaroid camera.

  “Before we do anything, I’m getting some photos.”

  She set the pyramid on her desk, knelt before it, and snapped a picture from

  about two feet away. The flash lit the room.

  Probably more light than this room’s seen in a long time, Jack thought. The camera whirred and spit out the photo. As expected, it came out blank.

  Weezy put it aside to let it develop as she rotated the pyramid and— flash, whir—photographed the other side. Then she turned to Jack.

  “Lay that on the floor, okay?” she said, pointing to the unfolded box in his hand. He did, then watched as she snapped another picture.

  “Okay,” she said, stepping back to her desk. She picked up the first photo and

  frowned. “Damn.”

  Jack stepped closer and peered over her shoulder. “What’s wrong?” “I was too close.”

  Jack wasn’t so sure. “Maybe. But funny how that pen lying right next to it is in

  perfect focus.”

  Weezy picked up the second photo: Same thing. And then the one of the unfolded box, where she hadn’t been close at al . The box pieces were blurred

  but the rug around it was in perfect focus.

  “Al blurred.”

  Eddie came over and took a look.

  “I don’t know about you guys,” he said, “but that’s creepitacious.”

  Jack agreed, but didn’t say so. There had to be an explanation.

  “Let’s try this,” he said, grabbing the pyramid and stepping back. He held it waist-high before him. “Take a shot of me holding it.”

  Weezy did just that. The three of them clustered and watched as the image slowly took shape. There stood Jack, his head cut off by the top of the photo

  frame. The Phil ies logo on his T-shirt was perfectly legible, but resting in his hand was a …

  Blur.

  He felt a chil run over his skin.

  Beside him, Eddie said, “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”

  Jack couldn’t have agreed more.

  But Weezy … she looked like she’d just found the Holy Grail. Her eyes shone as she clutched the photo and stared at it.

  “We’ve found one!” she whispered.

  “One what?”

  “A secret … a secret object.”

  Eddie groaned. “Your Secret History of the World again?”

  She turned on him. “You like to make fun of me and that’s okay. Why should you be different from anybody else? But there isa secret history. We think

  we know what’s happened in the past but we don’t. Most history books don’t even get the eventsright, and they haven’t a clueas to what was going on behindthose events.”

  Eddie snorted. “Oh, and you do?”

  “I wish I did. But I know something’sbeen going on. Secret societies and mysterious forces are out there pul ing strings and manipulating people and

  events and everyone wants to believe they’re in charge of their lives but they’re not because we’re al being pushed this way and that for secret reasons

  and we don’t even know it.”

  She was talking a hundred miles an hour, like she’d had a box of Cocoa Puffs and a couple of quarts of Mountain Dew for breakfast. She took a breath

  and continued.

  “There’s too many coincidences out there. Something’s going on— hasbeen going on throughout human history. And this—” She held up the pyramid.

  “We weren’t supposed to find this. We’re not supposed to have it. Because it’s proof that not everything is as it seems. I mean, why can’t we photograph

  it? Answer me that.”

  Eddie shrugged. He looked a little cowed by Weezy’s outburst. “I dunno. Maybe the camera’s broken.”

  Weezy tilted back her head and screeched at the ceiling. “Just because you can’t see something doesn’t mean it’s not there. Look at those pictures!

  It’s staring you in the face but you don’t see it because you don’t wantto see what you can’t explain because it wil upset yours and everybody else’s

  comfortable little worldview that we’re in control. Wel , we aren’t!”

  She stopped, breathing hard. Eddie didn’t speak. Neither did Jack. He’d never seen Weezy like this. Sure, she got hyper at times and had al sorts of

  strange theories about everything from the Kennedy assassination to Charles Manson, but this was kind of scary. Someone had pushed her hyperdrive

  button.

  She turned to him. “What about you, Jack? What do you say?” She held up the pyramid. “Something wrong with the camera or something wrong with

  this?”

  He remembered how clearly he could read his T-shirt in the last photo, yet how blurred the pyramid was, even though he’d been holding it against his

  chest.

  “The pyramid.” He quickly held up his hand to cut off another speech. “I’m not saying it has anything to do with secret histories—could be it’s made of

  something that does tricks with light—but I don’t think it’s the camera.”

  She sighed and fixed him with her big dark eyes. “Thank you, Jack. That means a lot.”

  Even though he’d witnessed her mood changes before, her sudden calm jarred him. She’d dropped from pedal-to-the-metal to cruising speed in the

  blink of an eye.

  “I want to know what it is,” he said.

  She nodded. “I’ve gotto know what it is.”

  “Wel , we won’t find out sitting here.”

  “Right,” she said, her voice barely audible. “Let’s go see Mister Rosen.”

  3

  Eddie had decided that defending the Earth in MissileCommandwould be more interesting than listening to whatever Mr. Rosen might have to say. He

  talked of beating the world-champion score of eighty mil ion points. Fat chance.

  Jack and Weezy could have walked but figured bikes were faster. Neither wanted to wait any longer than necessary. Jack led the way as they pedaled

  west, the morning sun warm on their backs.

  Funny, he thought as they rode, how he’d lead the way around town, but Weezy tended to take the point whenever they entered the Barrens. Almost as if

  something in Jack knew the Barrens were her turf and made him take a step back when the pines closed in.

  As they headed for downtown, Jack noticed people in passing cars slowing to stare and point at them.

  Thosearethekidswhofoundthebody.

  Cal ing it “downtown” was kind of a local joke. It consisted of eight stores clustered around the traffic signal at the intersection of Quakerton Road and

  Route 206, a rutted, patched stretch of two-lane blacktop running from Trenton to the Atlantic City Expressway. Johnson didn’t rate a ful traffic light, just a

  blinker.

  As Jack had heard it, Quakerton was the town’s name until 1868, when President Andrew Johnson, maybe trying to get away from the impeachment

  proceedings in Washington, spent three nights in the town’s one and only inn, now long gone. Seemed no one had liked the name Quakerton—after al ,

  not a single Quaker had ever lived there—so they changed the name to Johnsonvil e. By 1900 it had been shortened to Johnson.

  The traffic-light cluster consisted of a Krauszer’s convenience store, a used-car lot, and Joe Burdett’s Esso station—the company had changed its

  name to Exxon better than ten years ago, but old Joe had never changed the sign. Back east along Quakerton sat Spurlin’s Hardware, Hunningshake’s

  pharmacy, gift, and sweet shoppe, the VFW post, and Mr. Rosen’s place, USED. The sign used to say USED GOODS, but the nor’easter of 1962 ripped

  off the right side and Mr. Rosen never replaced it.

  The store had two large display windows on either side of the front door. Mr. Rosen had told Jack they’d been peopled with naked mannequins
when

  he’d bought it back in the 1950s from a wedding shop that had gone out of business. Now they were ful of what some people cal ed junk but Jack had

  come to see as treasures from the past. USED was his personal time machine.

  A bel atop the screen door tinkled as they entered. One step inside and the odors hit him—old wood, old cushioned furniture, old paper, a little dry rot,

  a little rust, and a lot of dust. He loved the smel of this place.

  “Mister Rosen?” he cal ed. “Mister Rosen?”

  A painful y thin, elderly man with a stooped posture, pale skin, and gray hair wandered into view from the rear.

  “Al right, already,” he said with a thick accent that sometimes sounded German and sometimes didn’t. “I’m coming, I’m—” He stopped when he saw

  Jack. “Wel , if it isn’t the Finder of Corpses.”

  “You’ve heard?”

  “Heard? Who hasn’t? Probably al over town before you got home.” He studied Jack. “You okay? You want the day off maybe?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Good. They know who it is yet?”

  “Not that I’ve heard.”

  The old man glanced at the gold-and-glass Jefferson mystery clock on a nearby shelf. “At noon you’re due.”

  “I know.” Jack stepped up to the counter and motioned Weezy forward. “But we’ve got something we’d like you to see.”

  Mr. Rosen slipped on a pair of glasses as he moved behind the counter. “Something maybe to sel ?”

  “No way,” Weezy blurted. “I mean, we’d just like your expert opinion.”

  “Expert, shmexpert, I’l tel you what I know.”

  Before leaving Weezy’s they’d reassembled the cube with the pyramid inside. Now she unfolded the bath towel she’d wrapped it in for transport, and

  placed the cube on the counter.

  Mr. Rosen adjusted his glasses for a closer look. “You bring me a box, a black box, and want to know what it is? In my expert opinion, it’s a black box.

  Anything inside?”

  “Oh, yeah,” she said. “That’s what we real y want to know about.” She stepped aside. “But it’l open only for Jack.”

  Jack didn’t understand why Weezy and Eddie couldn’t do it. He’d shown them, they’d fol owed his directions perfectly, yet it refused to open for anyone

  but him.

  Which only increased the thing’s creep factor.

  He did his thing to make it pop open, and then the three of them stood there at the counter, staring.

  Final y Mr. Rosen reached for the pyramid. “May I?”

  “Sure,” Jack said as Weezy gave a barely perceptible nod.

  Mr. Rosen lifted it, but instead of examining it he set it aside and picked up the unfolded cube. He wiggled it in the air and watched as the six panels

  flapped back and forth.

  “Fascinating,” he said.

  Jack was baffled. “Why?”

  “No hinges. The squares appear to be made of thin sheets of some sort of material I’ve never seen. That’s strange enough, but they move back and

  forth without any sort of hinge. Just … creases. Odd. Very, very odd.” “Tel me about it,” Jack said.

  Mr. Rosen looked at them. “This I’d be wil ing to buy.”

  Weezy gave her head an emphatic shake. “Uh-uh. It’s not for sale. Sorry.”

  Mr. Rosen nodded as he put it down and picked up the pyramid. He turned it over and over in his hands, making little humming and grunting noises as

  he held it up to the light and checked it with a magnifying glass. His sleeve slipped back revealing a string of numbers tattooed on his forearm. Jack had

  seen them before but had hesitated to ask about them.

  “Let me tel you, I’ve seen many strange objects in my day—you wouldn’t believe the things people bring in to try to sel me—but the likes of this I’ve

  never seen. I couldn’t even guess what it is.”

  “Oh,” Weezy said, her voice thick with frustration.

  Jack hid his own disappointment. “Too bad.” Mr. Rosen had seemed to know a little bit about everything. “We were hoping—”

  “But I know someone who might be able to help you.”

  “Who?”

  Jack half expected him to say, TheGreatandPowerfulOz!But instead …

  “Professor Nakamura. He’s a maven of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania.”

  Weezy looked at Jack. “U of P? How are we going to get to Philadelphia?”

  Weezy looked at Jack. “U of P? How are we going to get to Philadelphia?” “You don’t have to. He lives right here in town.”

  Jack frowned. He thought he knew pretty much everyone in Johnson. “Never

  heard of him.”

  “Moved in about a year ago. Keeps to himself, I think, but he’s been in here a

  few times. Interesting fel ow. His grandfather ran a laundry in San

  Francisco but was driven out in the twenties by the Jap haters—al fired up by Wil

  iam Randolph Hearst who hated Jews as wel —and fled back to Japan. Now his grandson has returned as an Ivy League professor. For al we know he

  might be teaching the greatgrandchildren of the bigots who drove his

  ancestors out. What sweet irony that would be.”

  Jack didn’t remember any Oriental customers.

  “Have I—?”

  Mr. Rosen shook his head. “Hasn’t been in since you started. Col ects Carnival

  Glass, of al things.”

  “What’s Carnival Glass?”

  “Iridescent kitsch is what it is. But he loves it. Bought every piece I had last

  spring.”

  That explained why Jack had never seen any—he hadn’t started here until late

  June.

  Mr. Rosen was fishing under the counter. “He left his number to cal as soon as

  any new items came in.” Final y he came up with a card. “Here it is. Let me give it a try. I got the impression his schedule at the university isn’t too heavy, so who knows? You may get lucky.”

  4

  They didn’t. Professor Nakamura wasn’t home but Mr. Rosen left a message to cal him back. Jack and Weezy headed back to her place. He didn’t have

  long before he was due at work.

  “What do we do now?” he said as they coasted along Quakerton Road.

  “Wait and see if this Professor Nakamura can help us, I guess.”

  “And if he can’t?”

  Weezy shrugged. “I don’t know. Don’t you wish the TV had a channel where you could, say, ask a question and it would search every library in the world

  and pop the answer onto the screen? Wouldn’t that be great?”

  “Yeah.” Then he thought about it a little more. “Or maybe not so great. You’d have to make TVs two-way before that could happen. I mean, it’s just oneway now—we can watch it and that’s that. But if it became two-way … it might start watching us.”

  Weezy looked at him and smiled, something she didn’t do often enough. “And you cal meparanoid?”

  “Hey, less than five months til Big Brother starts watching.”

  NineteenEighty-Fourwas on his high school summer reading list and he’d found it majorly disturbing.

  “Yeah, but—” She braked and pointed. “Aw, no!”

  Jack looked and saw two guys pushing around a third near the rickety one-lane bridge over Quaker Lake. The pushers were Teddy Bishop and a blond

  guy Jack didn’t recognize. Teddy, with long greasy hair and a blubbery body, was sort of the town bul y. His father was a lawyer and that seemed to make

  Teddy feel he could get away with anything.

  The beard and olive-drab fatigue jacket on the guy getting pushed around identified him as the town’s only Vietnam vet, Walter Erskine—or, as he was

  more commonly known, Weird Walt. It looked like Teddy and his friend were trying to grab the brown paper grocery ba
g Walt had clutched against his

  chest.

  Before Jack knew it, Weezy was pedaling toward the scene, yel ing, “Hey! Stop that!”