by Ivan Blake
“No, she’s not.”
Then a second voice. “Ma’am, this is Constable Henry with the Lewis Police. Could you open the door, please?”
Gillian ran to the top of the cellar stairs and called out, “Rose, the police are here,” then to the door again, and opened it cautiously. Two men on the back step, one short, heavy with a gray brush cut whom Gillian thought she recognized, and the other, an officer not much older than she, wearing a uniform several sizes too large.
“How’d you get through the gate?” Gillian asked.
“We didn’t. We left our cars at the gate and walked,” the officer replied.
“So Jackie Cormier isn’t here?” the heavy man in a trench coat and stained gray slacks asked again. The face came back to her. Martin Koyman, from the Bangor paper. “You’re sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. She left Friday morning. You’re her boss, aren’t you, from the newspaper.”
“And you’re the Willard girl from Bemishstock.”
Rose arrived. “What’s going on?”
“They’re looking for Jackie,” Gillian explained.
The young constable piped up. “Christopher Chandler is staying here, isn’t he? Would you mind if we came in and had a look around?”
“Yes, I would mind,” said Rose. “I thought you were looking for Jackie. What do you want with Chris?”
“Well, ma’am, we’ve had reports from Maine this guy Chandler is a dangerous troublemaker, and if the girl Jackie has disappeared...”
“Oh, ridiculous,” Rose said. “Chris is no troublemaker.”
Chris arrived at the back door. “Who’s not a troublemaker?”
“You’re not,” Rose and Gillian said in unison.
Chris recognized Koyman immediately. “Mr. Koyman, I’ve seen you many times, but we’ve never spoken.”
Koyman was in no mood for small talk. “Jackie Cormier has disappeared, and I’m worried.”
“When she left here on Friday, she said she was heading back to Bangor.”
“Then she called me from Portland to say she’d changed her mind and was returning to Lewis to correct some mistake she’d made.”
“Christ, she’s gone to the theater,” Chris muttered.
“The theater in town? Why there?” the police officer asked.
“Because she wanted to help us get something back Gilbert Burgoyne has stolen. She proposed going undercover at the theater, but I said no. I was going to take care of the matter myself.”
“What has Burgoyne stolen?” the cop asked.
“Bones from graves on my property,” Rose replied angrily. “Apparently he’s been stealing bones from graves all over the country and selling them to finance his theater. That’s according to the Mayor’s daughter, who was a member of the acting group until Burgoyne scared the wits out of her.”
“Stealing bones. That’s sick,” the young constable said.
“So you think we might find Jackie at the theater?” Koyman asked.
“I hope not, but if she is, she might be in real danger. Two cast members have already been seriously hurt,” Chris said.
“How?”
“Well, one washed his face with acid. He didn’t know two bowls had been switched.”
“And you think the switch was intentional.”
“Burgoyne is desperate for publicity, and ticket sales improve after each accident. He also threatened the Mayor’s daughter…said another accident could easily be arranged if she caused trouble. She was terrified.”
“They’re having some sort of special rehearsal today,” Rose said.
“Christ, if this Burgoyne character figures out Jackie’s a journalist…!”
“We were just on our way to the theater to confront Burgoyne.”
“We’ll go together,” the constable said.
* * * *
Who would ever have expected a cop car might have trouble keeping up with a ‘47 Buick? On the straightaways, as they flew along the North Kingdom Road into Lewis with siren screaming and tires squealing, the old Buick left the cop car in its dust. Chandler and the journalist were up ahead in the Buick, while Rose DuCalice and the gorgeous blond trailed far behind in Rose’s old Land Rover.
The police car radio crackled. “Base. This is Denning. You there Henry?”
“I hear you Fred. I’m not at base at the moment. Can you call me back in thirty? I’m kind of tied up with something at the moment. Over.”
“Well, I think I got a situation here. I’m out on Logger Point Road, couple of miles past Old Lady Rey’s place, on a dirt trail on the south side of the road. Couple of fellas heading back to their logging cut came across Harold Ferguson’s truck. They flagged me down; said they’d found something strange. There’s no sign of Ferguson anywhere, but there’s one hell of a lot of blood in the grass, all over the trail, everywhere. More blood than I’ve ever seen. I think we need to call the Chief. Over.”
“Right. I’ll get to the office as fast as I can and call him. Over.”
But then what about the girl? Okay, so maybe take one minute to check out the theater…make sure she’s okay. Then call the Chief. No problem. And anyway, someone could investigate the bone story another time. Probably nothing anyway.
* * * *
Chris was the first into the theater, followed by Koyman, panting like an old dog, and close behind him, the young constable.
The theater rang with much good-hearted laughter. The performers in costume were seated in the first two rows. Onstage, Gilbert was pacing about and cracking jokes to the enjoyment of his actors. One twin was arranging several standing lights while the other, up in the rafters, was adjusting a film camera. And at center stage stood Manfred’s enormous iron maiden contraption, with its two vertical coffin-shaped cabinets and their single, spike-clad lid. Jackie Cormier was strapped into one cabinet and Mayor Paget into the other. From time to time, Gilbert fiddled with the iron maiden’s straps and hinges and joked about mechanical malfunctions.
“Almost ready?” he called out to Sweat on the gantry setting up the camera.
Gilbert spotted Chris and his good mood evaporated instantly. “Christ, what the hell are you doing here? This is a closed rehearsal, get the hell out.”
“Jackie,” Koyman cried out. “What’s going on? Get out of there!”
“Martin?” Jackie replied. “What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you.”
“You needn’t be. This thing’s safe,” Jackie said. “We did it before, and it worked great. Scary though.”
“Constable,” the Mayor said, “what’s going on?”
“Are you okay, Mr. Mayor? I was told there might be sort of trouble here.”
“Hell, no. I’m fine. We’re making a TV commercial. Gonna scare the shit out of people.”
“Hey, officer. I want that Chandler guy off my property,” Gilbert shouted.
Icy fingers of fear ran up and down Chris’s spine. Gilbert was too much of a showman to send away an audience…unless an audience might complicate his plans. “If this gentleman—you see, he’s a reporter—if he’s nervous about his colleague, would you mind if we just took a moment to check the machinery,” Chris asked, “maybe make certain everything’s okay, before you start filming your commercial?”
“We told you, the machine’s fine,” Gilbert said. “We tested everything already, so get the fuck out! The Mayor’s a busy man. We don’t have time for this crap. Get the hell out!”
“No, it’s okay,” the Mayor said, “I’m not in a hurry. If they want to check things out, then okay.”
Geraldine ran into the theater. “Dad,” she screamed. “What are you doing?”
“Hi, Pumpkin, I’m making a TV commercial. Want to watch?”
“Dad, that machine will kill you.”
“No, it works great.”
“Not if Gilbert has blocked the hatches.”
“How could he do that?”
“He’s drilled holes in the stage behind the escape doors.
If he puts nails in them, the escape hatches won’t open.”
“What?” The Mayor began thrashing against the ties holding him inside the iron maiden. “Someone get up here! Check the goddamn doors, for Christ sake.”
Jackie started wrestling against her own ties as well. “Martin, please,” she cried.
“No,” Gilbert screamed. “Everyone, get off my stage, now!”
“I want out of this contraption!” the Mayor bellowed. “Officer, get me out! For Christ sake!”
Geraldine, Koyman, and the police officer all started running down the aisle. “Sweat, Blood, stop them!” Gilbert howled.
The twins pushed Koyman to the floor and landed a staggering blow to the head of the constable. He stumbled backward and collapsed. Blood then wrapped Geraldine in a bear hug, crushing the breath from her, and threw her a dozen feet up the aisle.
Chris had run across the back of the theater and was now sprinting down the side aisle when the exit door ahead of him suddenly flew open and Dolli stumbled in. The sight stopped Chris cold.
Dolli was naked, covered head to toe in congealed blood and dragging a naked corpse missing half its head. The corpse was lashed to Dolli’s waist and thighs with heavy cords. She began shrieking like a mad woman, “Get him off me! Christ, please! Get him off me!”
Chris grabbed her and she fell into his arms. Chris, Dolli and the corpse then collapsed in a heap on the floor.
The performers in the front rows looked stunned, like the world had suddenly exploded, and they didn’t know where to look first. Wolfgang Necrodancer was the first to move. He ran to the side aisle and tried to untie the ropes holding Dolli to the corpse. The constable, who’d shaken off the blow to his head, was now stumbling across the theater to help.
“What in Christ is going on,” the Mayor screamed? “Who the hell is that?”
“That, Mr. Mayor, is my beloved,” Gilbert replied. “And the dead guy with her was supposed to have been the star of our video, but he didn’t work out, so now we have you.”
“I don’t understand, I don’t understand,” the Mayor whimpered.
Chris called across the theater, “Burgoyne has been financing this place by selling human remains. And since misery sells tickets, it looks like he planned on filming a grisly accident today, an accident, starring you, Mr. Mayor.”
“To be fair,” Gilbert said, “I was giving the Mayor a fifty-fifty chance because I don’t control which door will close. So it’s either our cretin of a Mayor or this bitch of a reporter. Either way, the world will be rid of one nasty pest.”
“I don’t think you should do this, Gilbert,” Lassa Tetana cried out from her seat. “You can’t call it an accident anymore. There are too many witnesses.”
“But we can! If we all stick together, everything will be fine. So, we kill what,” Gilbert started counting, “two, three..., there are only six of them. So, it’s a really bad accident, so what? This is the only way to save our theater. Besides, their deaths will be art! First we film the iron maiden, the ultimate game of chance. Then we burn the others along with this dump. Perfect! We get a new theater and all the publicity we could ever wish for. And we sell the videos to a select clientele. It’ll work out great!”
“I won’t let you do this!” the cop said, and he started for the stage again.
Blood ran across the front of the theater to intercept the cop and punched him so hard, people all over the theater heard his jaw shatter.
“Listen to me,” Gilbert cried, “if anyone else rushes the stage like that dumb fuck, I‘ll trigger the device immediately, so stay the hell where you are!”
Gilbert walked to the front of the stage and pleaded with his cast. “Look,” he said, “It’s too late to stop now. We’ll only be caught if we don’t finish what we’ve started. Besides, was all your poetry and crap about death just talk? Everything will be fine. And whatever money we make, I’ll split evenly. I’m not in this for money. I never was. I’m doing this for art. This will be our greatest work! Ever.”
Chris cradled Dolli in his arms as Wolfgang Necrodancer unfastened her bindings and dragged the corpse away from her. “Where are the bones?” Chris whispered in her ear. “Can you hear me? Where are the bones?”
“In the mechanical closet,” she uttered, and passed out. Chris laid her head on the carpet and stood up. “Look after her,” he said to Wolfgang.
Martin Koyman, in the center aisle, was coming round. The cop, too. Emelia jumped out of her seat, ran to the cop and sat on him. Manfred Arimanes sprinted the length of his row to tackle Koyman and wrestle him to the floor. Caspar Fredrik stood in the center aisle waving a long knife. Lady Twilight and Wanetta Necrodancer appeared too confused and terrified to move. Lassa Tetana screamed, “Mother’s picture! I have to get Mother’s picture,” and took off toward the stage.
Chris chose that moment to charge headlong into Blood. The great hulk stumbled backward against the edge of the stage, and Chris was on him. “Meet Mallory,” he said as he kissed Blood’s cheek, then rolled away from the giant. Blood’s fate was sealed.
A mist swept down from the rafters, crackling and glowing as it came. Blue light filled the theater. Bulbs on the gantry way exploded, scenery flew in all directions, and tattered upholstery sizzled and smoldered. And Blood? Blood watched in horror as first his corset and then the flesh on his chest were peeled back like the rind of an orange. And when his heart lay beating before him, thumping away in what was left of his chest, he could only scream. His scream fell silent as his heart was ripped from his body and tossed in a great arc out over the auditorium and down between the rows of chairs. There Blood’s still-beating heart joined the thick layer of dried soft drink and crushed popcorn coating every inch of the theater floor.
Chris, still winded from his collision with Blood, struggled to his feet. Caspar Fredrik advanced on Chris, brandishing his knife and wearing a look of triumph and self-satisfaction…until Chris booted him in the groin. With a howl of pain, Caspar pitched forward on top of Blood.
Sweat began screaming from the gantry. “Blood!”
“Sweat!” Gilbert cried. “The camera! Sweat, are you getting this?”
Sweat seemed too stunned to grasp what Gilbert was shouting.
“Sweat, you’ve got to film this! Start the camera! Start the camera!” Gilbert had his hand on the iron maiden’s trigger.
* * * *
Rose and Gillian were met with utter pandemonium.
Geraldine was out cold on the floor in the center aisle, and nearby, the journalist Koyman was wrestling with one of Gilbert’s performers. Nearer to the stage, a large girl was sitting on the young police officer and striking him repeatedly with a hammer. One of the monster twins, propped against the front of the stage, had a huge bloody hole in his chest, and on the floor beside him, a skinny kid covered in blood was writhing about and shrieking like a maddened child. Three of Gilbert’s young performers were cowering in the left aisle, sobbing hysterically, and alongside them lay a naked, bloody corpse missing half its head. Gilbert, center stage, was screaming at the second twin up on a gantry. “The camera! Start the goddamn camera!”
Jackie and the Mayor were lashed side by side in what looked like a double coffin with a heavy hinged slab of wood between them—a door of some sort with foot-long spikes protruding from both sides. Jackie was trying desperately to break free of her restraints, and the Mayor, who from the moist brown streak down the inseam of his trousers appeared to have soiled himself, was shaking his head from side to side and babbling incoherently. And Chris? He was crouched at the edge of the stage, watching Gilbert intently.
“Christopher,” Gillian cried.
Chris spun around, saw the two women, and smiled. “Rose! Time to unleash hell!” he shouted, and drew the amulet from his shirt as Rose cried out something in Occitan.
And all Hell did indeed break loose.
The burst of light was blinding, and the explosion deafening. Winds and mists and flashes of lightning r
aced around the theater. Forms appeared, sweeping across the rows of seats, searching. And when they found what they sought, their rage knew no limit. Emilia was swept from the young cop like a fly from a picnic table, then kicked and tossed about until she was little more than a sack of shattered bones. Manfred was hauled into the air by his hair and whipped like a towel in a locker room brawl until his scalp came away entirely and he fell among the rows of chairs, howling in agony. Caspar Fredrik was tossed into the air and swatted like a Ping-Pong ball to crash against the side wall and tumble bleeding in a heap. He was then dragged up the stairs, onto the stage, and hanged by his ankles from the curtain ropes. The spirits didn’t spare Wolfgang and the young girls either. They screamed and sobbed as they were battered and lashed and scratched and kicked from one end of the side aisle to the other.
The spirits hadn’t yet discovered Sweat up in the lighting grid. “You gotta get this, Sweat,” Gilbert screamed as he brought his fist down on the timer of the iron maiden. The hand on the clock began its sweep toward twelve. Gilbert didn’t notice Chris launch himself from the edge of the stage until Chris was on him. Gilbert raked Chris’s face with his nails as Chris kissed his cheek. Chris tried to then roll away so Mallory and the other shades could do their worst, but Gilbert wouldn’t let go. In a deathly embrace, they rolled across the stage and over the edge. Chris had the wind knocked out of him, but even as the pair hammered each other, he cried out, “Stop the timer! Stop the timer!”
Martin did his best to reach the stage, but Rose and Geraldine got there first. Time then seemed to slow. For an instant, they stared at the sinister contraption, trying to make sense of its workings. They looked around for something—anything—to shatter the timer, or for a way to block the door from slamming shut, or a way to release the rear escape hatches. Then they looked at each other, and in a flash both knew what they had to do. Rose squeezed into the iron maiden in front of Jackie, and Geraldine in front of her father. They held hands, and smiled at each other. The timer made a grinding noise, and the door slammed shut...on Rose.
Chris head-butted Gilbert across the nose, broke free of his grip, and Mallory took over. Gilbert was dragged around the theater by his left leg like a rag doll and whipped against every solid object in his path. His clothes were shredded and flesh scourged. He was hauled into the air by the testes until they ripped away, and he plummeted to the stage. The spirits then took their turn. Gilbert’s eyes were torn from their sockets, ears severed from his head, and abdomen eviscerated. Eventually, he was tossed high into the air, and dropped across the back of a theater seat where he was crushed repeatedly until he was all but broken in two.