by K. T. Tomb
“I don’t quite understand either. There wasn’t a lot of information on the curse, really, so a lot of this is just learn as we go. Though I’d like nothing more than to not learn anything else about these damned things.”
Gerald heartily laughed his agreement. “If cursed is what they really are, I’d like to toss them to the bottom of the ocean rather than to have to continue dealing with them. Forget the fame and fortune, I just want to live.”
He sighed as he recalled Julie’s notes.
“It seemed that in the records of the deaths, the victims lived for different lengths of time. Some even going on for weeks before the curse’s full effects kicked in. What else did it say, Julie?”
She’d written down everything that she’d thought pertinent to their investigation, but the more she thought about it, there seemed to also be a pattern of those that had once been sane, slowly losing who they were. They’d become cruel and hateful to those around them; their loved ones. She couldn’t be sure if that had something to do with the curse, or something related to disease or poor health at the time, but it matched what Valery had been going through. She shared the information with Piers and Gerald and then considered it in more thoughtful detail.
“Or maybe it has something to do with opportunity. Grindlay was already in a dangerous environment and it wouldn’t have been too much of a surprise for that ceiling to come crashing down on him like it did; curse or not. Bobby, well…” She stopped, watching Piers at the mention of their friend, but he seemed calm, no longer as bothered as he once had been when talking about his friend’s death.
Piers filled in her thoughts for her. “Bobby was always a hothead, always looking for trouble. So it wasn’t out of character for him to have died the way he did. If this theory is right, then that guy was probably in a trance with no control over himself or his actions; merely a tool to carry out the end.”
Gerald joined in on the speculation. “And, Sheila, well, she was alone in her room so who’s to say if she committed suicide or if she fell out the window. The only one who knows what really happened is dead.”
She grimaced at the reminder of her friend lying spread out on the concrete as splatters of blood sprayed about her. Julie couldn’t be sure if her face had been spotted with blood, or if it had only been her freckles. They had seemed awful dark, and awful thick to not have been blood. She cringed, her stomach rebelling, wanting to throw up her lunch from that afternoon.
“There’s a hole in all of that, though,” Gerald continued. “There have been numerous opportunities for Valery to be killed off. Her roommate isn’t here right now, remember? So she’s alone, too, just like Sheila had been. She could have wrecked on her way over to your house or after the funeral. She could have slipped on wet pavement and broken her neck, she could have been mugged. It’s Boston, Julie. The possibilities to meet your maker here are endless. So if death is coming for her, if greed has taken her and the curse is in full swing, why is she still alive?”
Julie bowed her head, somewhat resigned.
“Okay, so theory three: it has to do with the person. We all know that the professor was out for his big discovery. Maybe that was his greed? And Robert was talking about selling the coins and then took one with him, most likely with the intent to do just that. That’s not so hard to believe, is it? Greed. Sheila, well, we know that she wanted to sell them, even if she said otherwise. So what is Valery’s greed? Maybe she hasn’t even discovered it herself and the curse is biding its time until it surfaces. We’ve already seen the changes in her, so I don’t think it’ll be long before it’s discovered. If it hasn’t been already.”
“If that’s the case, then we need to talk to her. She needs to understand what’s going on before it’s too late.” Piers was anxious as he thought of what had happened to Robert. He had never been close to Valery, but he didn’t want to see it happen to her. Robert’s death had been brutal and cruel. Valery didn’t deserve that. None of them deserved that, and if they could save her, if it wasn’t too late, then that was exactly what they needed to do.
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” Julie dropped her hands to the table, exasperated and defeated. “I’ve tried talking to her, I tried telling her about what’s been going on, but that was before we knew she had a coin too.” She sighed and leaned back against her seat. “She won’t answer my calls or the door when I stop by. Last night was the first time I’ve seen or spoken to her since the funeral, and you saw how well that went. She wants nothing to do with any of us. I would have told her this morning, but it was the furthest thing from my mind. I didn’t think she would be so callous about Sheila’s death, either. I thought she might stick around, grieve with us a little. God knows we’re all tired of grieving.”
“I’ve tried calling too.” Gerald joined in. “I was worried and stopped by, but nothing. It didn’t even sound like anyone was in the room and I was beginning to get a bit worried, until she came by your apartment.”
Gerald sounded just as frustrated as Julie felt.
“But you’re right; we have to reach her somehow. If she’s next, she needs to know it, she needs to understand.”
Chapter Seven
“From a distance Judas saw them raise the cross piece with Jesus nailed thereon, and upon sight of this he rushed back to the temple and, forcing his way past the doorkeeper, found himself standing in the presence of the Sanhedrin, which was still in session. The betrayer was well-nigh breathless and highly distraught, but he managed to stammer out these words: ‘I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood. You have insulted me. You have offered me as a reward for my service, money—the price of a slave. I repent that I have done this; here is your money. I want to escape the guilt of this deed.’
“When the rulers of the Jews heard Judas, they scoffed at him. One of them sitting near where Judas stood, motioned that he should leave the hall and said: ‘Your Master has already been put to death by the Romans, and as for your guilt, what is that to us? See you to that—and begone!’
“As Judas left the Sanhedrin chamber, he removed the thirty pieces of silver from the bag and threw them broadcast over the temple floor. When the betrayer left the temple, he was almost beside himself. Judas was now passing through the experience of the realization of the true nature of sin. All the glamor, fascination, and intoxication of wrongdoing had vanished. Now the evildoer stood alone and face to face with the judgment verdict of his disillusioned and disappointed soul. Sin was bewitching and adventurous in the committing, but now must the harvest of the naked and unromantic facts be faced.” —The Urantia Book 186:1.4-6
They couldn’t be sure if they’d finally worn her down, or if she came out of her room to appease them so they would finally leave her alone, but Valery finally opened the door to her friends’ unrelenting pounding. Her neighbors had even walked out of their own rooms to address the relentlessness.
“What do you want?” she screamed, as the door swung open, revealing Valery. The group was left stunned.
Their Valery was gone, and in her place was a cruel mockery of their friend. She was wild, her hair in a tangled mess around her head, her clothes disheveled and dirty, her glasses thrown off, forgotten, on the table beside her bed. They could see her fist closed tightly around something, and they could only assume it was the coin. She stood in the doorway motionless, waiting for someone to answer her and she clearly wasn't moving until they did.
“We need to talk about the coins.”
Julie flinched even as she uttered the words, anticipating that Valery would lash out at her. She couldn’t imagine what was going on in her head, but whatever it was, it was some sort of an illusion. Valery said nothing. Her eyes were glassy, almost as though she hadn’t heard Julie at all.
“Val? Did you hear me? We need to talk. If you let us in and let us tell you what we came here to say, I promise we will leave.”
She hesitated, unwilling to say what she needed to say. What she knew Valery might have wante
d and was waiting to hear. “If you want, after that, we’ll leave you alone completely, but please listen to us first.”
Valery said nothing, but she moved from the doorway and flopped onto her bed, barely acknowledging Julie, Gerald, and Piers as they entered her dorm room and closed the door behind them.
“Where are they?” Valery asked suddenly, breaking the silence that none of the others had wanted to break.
“What are you talking about?” Piers asked. “Where are who?”
“You know damned well what I’m talking about, so don’t play games with me! Where are they?” She was snarling and her friends were certain that even she wasn’t aware she was doing it.
Julie sat beside Valery, the soft pillow-top bed sinking beneath her. Val narrowed her eyes as she edged towards the wall.
“We just want to help. We really need to talk to you about this before it’s too late,” Julie said.
She tried to reach out a hand to her friend, to show her support, but Valery slapped it away, a low grumble escaping her throat.
“Where? Are? They?” Her voice was monotone and even, but just beneath the surface, you could hear something menacing. “I want them! Where are they? They’re mine! Mine!”
Julie glanced from Piers to Gerald, confused and worried. Was she talking about the coins? Why did she want the coins? She already had one, and that was enough for the curse, wasn’t it? But the greed. The greed was hitting her and Julie feared for her friend’s life.
“You don’t need the coins!” Julie hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but it seemed the only logical response to Valery’s behavior. “They’re cursed and will do you no good. We know you have one, so where is it? We need to lock it away with the others before it gets you killed!”
She was pleading, even though she knew it wasn’t breaking through to Valery. Arguing would do nothing. Discussing the consequences would mean nothing. She was already under the spell and the only way to break it would be to remove the coin from her possession. But who was going to be brave enough to do that? Julie looked to her friend, or the shell of what had once been her friend; sweet, kind, mild-tempered Valery was nowhere to be seen and Julie was certain that whoever went in for the coin was likely to lose an eye, or worse.
“I need them! I want them! I deserve them! All you ever do is take, take, take from me! It’s my turn. I want those coins! I earned them!”
She looked odd without her glasses, as if they had kept her restrained her entire life. Now that they were forgotten on the table, the lion who had been buried within was finally coming forth.
“You need to listen to us,” Gerald said as he sat on the opposite side of Valery, trapping her between him and Julie. “Please. We don’t want what happened to the professor, Bobby, or Sheila, to happen to you. I don’t think we have long before it does, either, so please listen to us.”
Valery pushed him away, but remained quiet. They couldn’t be sure if she was actually listening, or refusing to acknowledge their presence, but they told her anyway. She remained quiet until they finished, but she was not over her outbursts or her new found hatred of everything except the coins.
“Robert died because of you!” she said, jutting a crooked, unsteady hand towards Piers. “The hell with a curse. You are the curse! All of you are the curse! Curse all of you! Robert didn’t have to die, but you let him, you all let him, and you are all going to suffer for it! Now bring them to me! I need them! They belong with me!”
Piers could keep quiet no longer.
“Bobby did not die because of us! He died because he was greedy and selfish, and the exact same thing is going to happen to you because that is exactly what you are being right this second! If you don’t want to listen to us, that’s fine. I hope that coin takes you straight to hell, and soon!”
He was shaking. Every ounce of energy and hatred was being thrown at Valery, but he couldn’t bring himself to approach her. Someone had to take that coin from her before it was too late, but he wasn’t strong enough to do it. Physically, maybe, but not mentally. Looking at her, seeing the deranged woman before them, he was beginning to think that none of them would be strong enough for that.
Julie jumped to his side to calm him, but he was too wound up to stop.
“You want to know why Bobby never paid you any damned attention? Because he knew that you weren’t going to be easy. He liked easy, he wanted easy, and if you’d have given it to him, that’s all he would have wanted from you. He wanted someone who was going to lie in his bed at the drop of a hat and then leave the next morning. He wanted someone who wasn’t going to hang around like a girlfriend. He didn’t want a girlfriend, he didn’t want clingy, he just wanted a lay! Right, Julie?”
Julie stumbled back, hurt and surprised. It had been years since she had been involved with Robert, and well before she and Piers had begun dating, had even really known each other. How had he even known? It had only happened one time and she’d never felt the need to tell Piers. He and Bobby had been so close and she’d been scared that it would ruin their friendship, or worse.
“Did Bobby tell you about that?” she asked, stunned.
She didn’t know if she was hurt, or angry that he was bringing it up now, and here of all times and places.
“And you’re just now saying something about it? How long have you known and been holding it in?”
“I shouldn’t have had to hold it in! You should have told me something like that from the beginning, and not waited until you were confronted about it.”
Tears stung at the corner of her eyes as she listened to her fiancé’s words. She’d never meant to intentionally withhold that information, but it had never come up in conversation either. There had been no reason for it. There was no defense to be had, no excuse for her to use.
“I’m sorry. I know I should have told you, but he was your best friend and it was before we had even met. It was water under the bridge.”
Something was tangling in her hair and yanked her back with such a force that she bounced off of the floor. Before she could understand what was going on, Valery was on top of her, pulling at her hair, clawing at her skin, screaming like a banshee. Gerald yanked her off and threw her on the bed.
“Get out of here!” he yelled at both Julie and Piers, who did not hesitate before bursting through the door and down the dorm hallway.
He wasn’t exactly comfortable being left alone with her, but he had hopes that he might accomplish more with some one on one time with her. She watched him like a lion watched a gazelle, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce. Maybe she wasn’t next. Maybe he was. Maybe she was going to kill him right then and there, and not think twice about it. No, he looked into her eyes, she wasn’t that far gone, was she? He sure as hell hoped not as he placed a hand on her knee.
“I don’t know how you feel right now. I can’t know. He was my friend too, but I understand that he meant more to you than that.”
Was she even breathing? He watched her for a moment, unmoving and solid as stone, but every once in a while, she blinked, telling him that she was still there, even if she wasn’t listening.
“What happened to Bobby was awful, we all agree to that. He didn’t deserve it, but what’s done is done. Okay?”
She still said nothing, but at least she wasn’t going on another tirade, so he kept talking, hoping to lure the old Valery back, or at least a semblance of her. He pulled her hand into his lap and methodically rubbed the icy fingers. So cold. She didn’t fight, didn’t protest, but she still didn’t speak to him.
“I miss Bobby too. He was a great guy and a great friend. We are all saddened by the loss, but you can’t keep yourself locked up like this. You still have people who care about you, that love you. We all love you, Val. Please don’t lock us out.”
“Love me?” She suddenly snapped out of her daze and scowled at Gerald. “I don’t care if you love me, I loved Bobby! And Bobby could have loved me!”
She let loose a maniacal laugh. “No, h
e will love me! But Bobby isn’t here, now, is he? No, he’s gone. You let them take him away from me! You let him die and did nothing to stop it! It’s your fault! It’s all your fault!”
She laughed awkwardly, to a silent joke that only she knew. “That’s okay because I’ll be with him, I’ll be with him again. It won’t be long now and we’ll be together.”
Gerald moved towards the edge of the bed, hoping not to alarm her by his retreat, but that was exactly what he was doing. He was beginning to realize that she needed far more than he could give her, than any of them could give her. She’d become lost in her own delusions, delusions and visions created by the curse of the coin. He was sure of it.
“You want to know a little secret?” She giggled lightheartedly, but it wasn’t a Valery giggle. It was childlike and foolish, full of mischief. “Have you wondered what really happened to Sheila? Have you wondered if she really threw herself out of that window? If she would really commit suicide? Come on now, Gerald.”
She giggled again. It was more sinister than the first. “I’ve known you long enough to know that you’re pretty smart when you want to be. When you open your eyes and look around you, look at what’s really going on. So what’d you think? You think she offed herself? Think she tossed herself overboard like a ragdoll surfing the wind?”
He had no words, no response. He didn’t know what he thought. He had doubted her suicide all along, but what was Valery hinting at? He couldn’t stand listening to her for one second longer. He had to get out of there.
“I won’t give you the answer, sweetie,” she continued, raising her hands to display a coin between the thumb and index finger on each of them. “Because I think you already know it!”
She laughed again as he slammed the door behind him. He could still hear her fits of giggles as he made his way down the stairs.
Chapter Eight