by K. T. Tomb
She ended the call for the sixth time in two days.
They’d been trying to reach Gerald, but he had stopped answering their calls. Piers had started pacing the apartment the night before and had kept it up until that morning. Julie had tried to calm him, had tried to get him to go to bed, but he wouldn’t. He kept mumbling that Gerald was up to something. That he and Valery were plotting something, something against him and Julie, but Julie didn’t want to believe that. Didn’t want to, but since he seemed to be blowing them off just as Valery had, it was hard for her to not believe that he was onto something. Maybe Piers was right.
He’d finally given up on the pacing hours before. Instead, he had taken to rocking on the couch. Back and forth, back and forth. He was going to make her lose her own mind if he didn’t stop. He was staring at her like a lost puppy dog. Why did she have to be the strong one now? They’d each had their own breakdowns, and she needed him to get over his and be strong for her. Was it because of what happened between her and Robert? Piers hadn’t discussed the subject since they’d left Valery’s, but then again, he hadn’t spoken to her about anything; anything rational. He just paced and then rocked. And stared; oh God, how he stared. Was it a bad thing that she just wanted to walk over and wrap her hands around his neck, just to see if he would fight her off?
She slammed the phone back onto the counter and glowered at it, willing it to ring. Even as she willed it, she was stunned when it began vibrating across the counter's surface. She snatched it up in a half-daze.
“Hello?” She demanded, using the tone that expressed exactly how she was feeling towards Gerald at the moment.
There was a giggle, a woman’s giggle, but not one that she recognized.
“Somebody’s a little tense, aren’t you, little whore? What’s wrong darling? My Bobby got your panties in a wad?” The voice had turned condescending and spiteful. Valery.
“What do you want? Why are you calling me? I’m not going to try anymore. We spoke our piece and I told you that I would leave you alone, that we would leave you alone after that, so what do you want?”
She didn’t know if she was angry or relieved to hear from her friend—or the girl that had once been her friend—but from the sound of the other girl’s voice, she thought that by the end of the conversation she was not going to be happy.
“Well, I just thought you might want to know what s little birdie told me.” Valery snickered to herself, or maybe to someone else, who knew, and then grew serious. “Someone is being naughty. Very, very naughty, indeed. He thought I wouldn’t know, but I do know. I always know.”
“What are you babbling about? Just tell me what you want or I’m hanging up!”
“Then you won’t ever know what’s happened to the coins. What will happen to them if you don’t go, now. We have to stop him!”
She was nearly hissing through the phone, but Julie had no idea who she was talking about.
“You’re not making any sense. Who are you talking about? Who has the coins? What are they going to do?” She was frustrated enough as it was, but now Valery was making it worse. Why would she even believe her to begin with? The girl had gone completely crazy. She was being controlled by whatever the coins and the curse were doing to her. It made no sense to her, but she’d grown tired of trying to figure it out. She couldn’t even recall how long it had been since the professor’s death, how long all of it had been going on. Days? Weeks? Months? Everything dragged on, yet nothing seemed to move. They were in a funhouse, stuck in the maze of mirrors with no map to get out, and it wasn’t very fun.
“You know who I’m talking about! You have to know! Who else? It certainly isn’t Bobby, so who else could it be?”
She spit the words like venom into Julie’s ear, and they burned. No, Bobby wasn’t here any longer. Piers watched her from the couch, still rocking still staring. Like a cat stalking a mouse, waiting for its moment to pounce.
“Gerald has them! He has them and they’re going to be lost forever,” Valery moaned sorrowfully, “Forever lost. No, not lost. Can’t be. We have to stop him! Stop him, Julie! Stop him! Get the coins! Get me the coins!”
There was a click, and then nothing, as Valery hung up the phone, leaving Julie with the cryptic message ringing in her ears.
“That was Valery, wasn’t it?”
His voice was cracked and unsteady, but it still shocked Julie. After two days, she was beginning to wonder if he would ever speak to her again.
“She said that Gerald is doing something with the coins.” She glanced at her cell phone, still puzzled by the call and Valery’s words. “I don’t know how she knows, or what he’s doing, exactly. But she was pretty freaked out.”
Then she reminded herself that Valery had been pretty freaked out for a while now.
“What did she say about the coins?”
His eyes had cleared and he stood to move towards the kitchen, as if he hadn’t been catatonic for the last forty or so hours. As if everything had been completely normal, nothing out of place, and that this was a typical, everyday conversation they were having.
“She just said that he was doing something with them. She said he is being naughty and that the coins are going to be lost.” She pondered what Valery had said, wishing that there had been more, something more concrete. Lost, how? “She kept saying that we need to stop him and then she said to get the coins, get the coins for her. I don’t know. I have no idea what she’s talking about or what Gerald is doing.”
“Call her back,” he replied, matter-of-factly.
As if it was the most obvious of choices. But it wasn’t the obvious choice, not with everything that had happened, all that was going on. Valery hadn’t answered their calls even one time since Robert’s death and they were lucky she had even opened the door for them at the dorm the other day. She said as much.
“But she just called you, didn’t she? Apparently what’s going on is important to her and she wants us to take care of it for her, right? So why would she not answer your call now, if she really wanted help? Call. Her. Back.”
He poured himself a cup of coffee and left the room, letting Julie think through what he’d said. He had a point. Valery needed their help preventing Gerald from doing whatever it was he was about to do. So she did the only thing she could think to do. She picked up the phone and called Valery.
“Yes?”
For a moment, Julie was fooled into believing that Valery, the old Valery, was on the other end, and then the calculation crept back into the voice.
“They’re going to be lost if you don’t hurry. You should hurry, now, Julie. Before it’s too late and they are gone forever, just like my Robert. Oh, Bobby.”
Julie thought she heard tears through the words, but couldn’t be sure. According to Valery, however, she didn’t have time to worry about the tears or the sorrow.
“I know, you said that earlier, but where is he? We can’t stop him if we don’t know where to go.”
“Oh, you know where he is. You know. The water will be so cold, you know, but the coins will capture the moon as they drift to the floor of the bay. It’ll be beautifully tragic. So tragic.” She trailed off for a moment before coming back full force. “Stop him, Julie! You have to stop him! Save the coins!”
Another click and the girl was gone.
“Hey, Piers?”
Her fiancé walked back into the room, still sipping on steaming black coffee, his free hand shoved into the front pocket of his jeans, as she tried to mask her panic.
“Where does Gerald’s dad dock his sailboat?”
“Uh, the one by Savin Hill. Why?”
“Because he’s about to toss the thirty coins into the ocean.”
Piers’ eyes widened as his hand released the mug and the hot liquid splashed onto the carpet and his jeans. Instead of acknowledging the spill, he ran to the door and, snatching his coat, snapped the locks back and ran out the door, Julie barely on his heels.
“Piers?” She jogged af
ter him, nearly out of breath as they reached the bottom of the last set of stairs, but Piers showed no signs of slowing down. “Piers!”
“We have to catch him, Julie. We have to stop him!”
She cringed at the words, and though he couldn’t have known exactly what Valery had said to her on the phone, it chilled her nonetheless that he had just echoed her cries. She jammed the keys into the ignition and sped towards the Southeast Expressway. Gerald lived slightly further from the part of town where Savin Hill was located, but he also had a head start on them. For all she knew, he was already on the water and they had no chance of stopping him. Once those coins dropped into the ocean, they would be lost forever.
She felt wild, like Cruella Deville, chasing after runaway puppies and she had a suspicion that Piers was feeling the same. He was muttering unintelligibly to himself and she didn’t bother deciphering his words. All she worried about was making it to the dock and stopping Gerald. He must have lost his mind along with Valery. She’d contaminated him and now he was going over the deep end with her.
“I’ve been thinking.” Julie barely heard his words, but that didn’t deter him. “What would we do if we had a few million dollars?”
She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, waiting for him to continue. He was distracted by something, his thoughts having veered off and left him in a daydream. For a moment, there was silence and then, “We have to stop him, Julie. Those coins are worth too much to just toss to the bottom of the ocean. We have to stop him!”
“Since when have you been thinking about how much they’re worth?”
She inquired, not so much nervous about his answer but nervous about the cause of that answer, the reason behind his sudden change of heart. Since they’d moved in together, they’d been satisfied with living on nothing or next to nothing. History would not have been their field of study if money had been a priority.
“I thought we agreed that they needed to be returned to the church? We can’t keep them; you do know that, right? The curse, remember?”
“Yeah, the curse. Right. But if we don’t keep the coins, and we just sell them right away, we’ll be fine. No curse for us.” He shook his head in a silly, childish fashion. “Didn’t you say you had to have the coins in your possession in order to be affected? We sell them, quick and easy. Imagine what we could do!”
His eyes roamed out the window, drawing him into a daydream once again and for the first time, Julie noticed that his hand was in his pocket and had been in his pocket at least all of that morning, never moving. She tried to recall how long it had been there, but there had been so many other things distracting her thoughts that it was impossible to think so far back. Had it been a few hours? A day? Two, three, four days? The days were a blur behind them and she couldn’t recall.
“Piers?” she asked hesitantly, “Do you have one of the coins?”
She was terrified of his answer, though she already knew the truth. What if he lied? Would she be forced to confront him? Her fiancé, the man she loved and planned to spend her life with? Would she have to fight a coin out of his hand just as she had wanted to do for Valery? She would fight, too. She would fight to save Piers, even if it meant to end her own life in order to save his. She would fight for him.
He cocked his head to the side as he looked at her.
“Why do you ask?”
“Do you?” Her breath was caught in her throat as she awaited his response.
He smiled wide; an angelic smile with a wicked twist.
“I do.”
He pulled the coin from his front pocket and turned it this way and that, allowing the moonlight to gleam off the surface. He showed it to her as if it were a toy he’d just pulled from a Happy Meal. As if it was the most magnificent toy, the only toy, he had ever wanted in the whole wide world. As if the toy were magic, and she supposed that it was, and would do tricks for them if they just stared at it long enough.
She felt the lump in her throat tighten at the sight of it.
“When, no, how did you get a coin? They’re in the vault! Or, they were, anyway.”
“Didn’t it all make sense?” he asked, tentatively. “Everything Gerald said in the vault. He was right, you know. We could use the money, for our wedding, for our future. We would never have to worry about anything ever again. Just the two of us, ya know? We could move away from here! Where do you want to go? Paris? Hawaii? South Africa? Come on, baby, anywhere! You just have to dream it up and it can be ours!”
She ignored his questions, still feeling nausea well up inside her. He had been corrupted, tainted by the promises made by the little slice of silver. Judas’ thirty.
“When did you take the coin? How did you even get it?”
“Oh,” he laughed lightly, “when Gerald and I fought and the coins spilled to the floor?” It was a question, more than a statement, as if she could have forgotten that moment. “I scooped one up as we straightened everything else. No one bothered to count them again, so…” He shrugged nonchalantly. “No big deal. Only one coin, but now, we can have them all!”
She didn’t know what he meant by that, and she was sure she didn’t want to know. He turned in his seat, his face suddenly serious.
“We have to stop him, Julie!”
She turned her eyes back to the road, unwilling to meet his gaze.
“We’ll stop him,” she mumbled, though she wasn’t convinced of it.
She was no longer concerned with stopping Gerald, though. Gerald seemed to be the sanest one in the bunch, at least for the moment. If Valery was right, and he was going to toss the coins, then she wanted to be sure that that was exactly what happened. But her new concern was stopping Piers. Saving him from what he’d already begun to succumb to. She was terrified that she was already too late. Was there any going back once the curse had them in its clutches? She thought not, and that thought broke her heart.
Chapter Nine
“This onetime ambassador of the kingdom of heaven on earth now walked through the streets of Jerusalem, forsaken and alone. His despair was desperate and well-nigh absolute. On he journeyed through the city and outside the walls, on down into the terrible solitude of the valley of Hinnom, where he climbed up the steep rocks and, taking the girdle of his cloak, fastened one end to a small tree, tied the other about his neck, and cast himself over the precipice. Ere he was dead, the knot which his nervous hands had tied gave way, and the betrayer’s body was dashed to pieces as it fell on the jagged rocks below.” —The Urantia Book 186:1.7
He wasn’t going to be taken in by their evil, of that he was sure. He was going to be rid of the coins once and for all; they all would be rid of them and the curse attached to them.
He pounded across the planks and his father’s boat came into view. The Northern Nancy, named after his mother, Nancy. He pulled the backpack from his back and checked again, making certain the coins were still there. He’d checked before leaving the museum and had been disheartened to find only twenty-seven coins for that count. There was nothing he could do about it. What he could do was to ensure that most of them would be lost forever. He’d counted again when he’d climbed into his truck, and again when he’d arrived at Savin Hill Park. Though it was a foolish notion, he was terrified that the coins would magically disappear if they knew their fate was to be tossed into the ocean. But no, there had been twenty-seven each time he’d counted. He had no illusions about who had the third coin. Doubtless that it was Piers, but he could do nothing about it. He was afraid that if he hesitated in his current task, the curse might take him as well. Piers and his coin would have to wait.
The bag clunked against the sailboat’s deck as he swung his legs over and climbed aboard. There was shuffling behind him, still on the dock, but very close. And then he heard a voice, a voice he barely recognized.
“Tsk, tsk, Gerald. What do you think you’re doing? You’re not being naughty, are you?”
She wore the same clothes she’d worn when he’d been in her dorm
a few nights before, unwashed, unkempt, dirty and wrinkled, but she didn’t seem to notice. Her hair was a matted, filthy mess atop her head, her skin blotchy and pale in the small sliver of crescent moonlight.
“Val, I’m doing what’s best for all of us, okay? Just let me do this.”
He didn’t think it would be so easy, didn’t think she’d just let him be. After all, why was she there if she didn’t plan on stopping him?
“No!” she screamed, stomping a foot on the wooden dock like an obstinate child. “No! You’re doing this for you! Not for us! Never for us! You can’t have those coins! Share, Gerald! Share!”
He stared at her, wide-eyed and unsure of what to do or how to reply. No amount of reasoning was going to get through to her. He edged backward slowly, hoping she wouldn’t climb aboard before he could crank the motor and pull away from the dock. No such luck, though. She placed a steady foot in, and then another. So close, only a few feet separating them.
“Give them to me! They’re mine! I deserve them!” She wailed through her tantrum. It was the shrill sound of an injured animal lost in the woods. “Share! Share, share, share!”
She demanded as she stomped her foot again, rocking the small boat.
Gerald fumbled through the bag, hoping Valery would assume he was complying with her order, that he was going to hand her exactly what she had asked for. She smiled sincerely, believing she had won, but when he pulled the cold, black steel from the backpack instead of the coins, her smile faded and her eyes grew dark.
“Naughty, naughty, Gerald. Naughty, little boys shouldn’t have such dangerous toys.”
She took a step towards him, and then another. He didn’t want it to come down to this. He didn’t want to use the gun and had hoped that with it in his hand and aimed towards her, she would stop. But she didn’t.
“Please, Val. Stop. I don’t want to us it, I really don’t.”
She reached out to him, her fingertips only inches from his arm. The shot rang through the air like thunder, seeming to shake their entire existence down to its bare bones. Valery dropped at his feet, a broken mess of blood and death. He hadn’t wanted to, yet he had. He’d had no choice. He felt himself heaving, fighting back the vileness of it as he pushed her body to the side. He’d have to bend down and lift her over the side, but he didn’t think he could do it. Not just yet, not right that moment while her body was still warm, while the life was slowly fading from her eyes, while her lips twitched and her muscles continued to spasm. He would let her grow cold, stiff and lifeless before he touched her. By then, he would be out to sea where he could toss her and the cursed coins into the deep water.