Bad Moon Rising

Chapter 34

(1)

“Here, drink this,” Val said, handing Mike a cup of hot tea. It was vending-machine tea, but if it tasted bad there was no sign of it on Mike’s face. He sipped it and then cradled the cardboard cup between his palms, body hunched over the rising steam, his face pale and unspeakably sad.

“Crow isn’t here?” he asked.

“No, he…had something important he had to do this morning.”

Mike nodded, not looking at her. “He went back to Dark Hollow, didn’t he?”

Weinstock gave Val a sharp glance; she shook her head. “Mike?” she said softly, laying a hand on his knee. “What makes you think Crow’s gone out to the Hollow?”

“He’s gone out there to try and find Griswold.”

When they didn’t answer Mike raised his head and looked at them. Both of them had horrified, stunned expressions on their faces, but these worsened as they got their first clear look at Mike’s eyes.

“God!” Val recoiled. “Mike…what’s happened to you?”

He managed the slightest of smiles, but his voice quavered as he said, “Don’t worry…I’m not one of them.”

“You’re not one of…what?” she asked, and without realizing she was doing it she moved her right hand down toward her purse, where she had a .32 pistol she’d taken from her father’s gun collection.

Mike’s eyes followed her, his smile flickering. The gold rims around his blue-red eyes seemed to flare for a second. “You going to shoot me?”

Her hands paused, fingertips just over the closed mouth of the bag. Narrowing her eyes, she said, “Do I need to shoot you, Mike?”

“I hope not,” he said. “I’ve already been dead once today. Don’t know how many times I can take it.”

“God, Val, he’s a vampire!” Weinstock hissed.

Mike turned to him. “No,” he said softly, “I’m something…else.”

Val paused a moment longer and then pulled her hand back. “What happened to you?”

He lowered his eyes. “I don’t know. I told you, I’m not one of them…but I don’t really know what I am.”

“Mike, tell me what happened.”

Tears pearled the corners of his eyes. “I…,” he began and a sob broke his word in half. Mike slid off the bed toward her and suddenly wrapped his arms around her; one sob became a flow of them and they built and built until he was sobbing uncontrollably, hanging on to Val as if he’d fall into the abyss if he let go. His thin body shook and bucked and after a moment of stunned hesitation Val gathered him in and held him as tightly as he clung to her.

He kept saying one word over and over again as he wept. “Mommy…”

(2)

Since he’d awakened in his grave a month ago the Bone Man had spent most of his time wandering the roads and fields of Pine Deep searching for some kind of purpose, for a reason that he was back. Some of the time his mind seemed to be opening up and filling with insights, with knowledge he could not have acquired while he was alive; but these moments of insight were always brief and they never let him look deeply enough into the mysteries. It was insanely frustrating.

He knew, for example, that Griswold was a psychic vampire and that Mike was a dhampyr; but he didn’t know the limits of what each of those things was, which didn’t exactly help him plan his next move.

He knew that the Red Wave was coming and that it was going to do great harm to the people of Pine Deep—but he didn’t actually know what form it would take, or the actual moment it would start. He knew it was going to be on Halloween, and he guessed that it would be sometime after sunset, but that’s where the whole process showed its rust: it was half knowledge and then guesswork.

He knew that he was here for a purpose, and that it was tied to Mike, certainly more so him than anyone; and along the way he’d learned that he could blind the eyes of that Bible-thumping tow truck driver any time he tried to put Mike in his sights. Yeah, mission accomplished there at least, but now he felt that there was a bigger, greater purpose.

He wondered if somehow Griswold was blocking him off from understanding his greater purpose. That wormy old bastard was strong enough—strong in ways that the Bone Man didn’t always understand. He was old strong, an evil intelligence centuries in the making.

Twice now he’d told that poor boy Mike the truth, first about his parentage, and then as much of the story as he knew. He knew, knew for a sure-thing certainty you could take to the bank, that it was the right thing to do, that telling Mike was part of why he had come back; but now, looking back on it, he was filled with doubts. The boy hadn’t taken the news well. Who would? The first time he’d crashed his bike and nearly died out in the fields. The second time the kid actually had died. That had scared the Bone Man worse than anything he’d known in life or death, and for a lot of long confused hours he’d sat by the boy’s body as it cooled. He’d never felt so lost and alone, so Judas guilty as he did then. Surely this boy was not meant to die. How could that make any kind of sense? And there had to be sense somewhere in this madness or why else had he been brought back? Granted, the kid was probably going to die during the Red Wave or maybe later when the strange genetics of the dhampyr wore the kid down and killed him as it did everyone cursed with that legacy, but the kid just up and had a coronary right there and then.

Sitting by the boy’s body the Bone Man cursed God until even the crows in the trees looked aghast.

Then Mike had stopped being dead.

From wherever it had gone the kid’s spirit came and reclaimed his body. Just like that.

Thinking about it as he walked through the woods toward Griswold’s house, the Bone Man cast an angry eye at Heaven. “Moves in mysterious ways, my ass.”

When Mike had opened his eyes, the Bone Man tried apologizing, but the kid looked through him as if he wasn’t there. Like he didn’t see him anymore, which made no sense. If the dying could see him, and the dead could see him, then Mike should have been able to.

But the kid had gotten up and wandered off, heading back to town. The Bone Man yelled at him, had strummed his guitar—something that always seemed to work before—but the boy just didn’t hear, as if whatever bond had existed before the kid died had burned away once he woke up.

Now, everything was in motion. The Bone Man could see what Vic and Ruger were doing and now he understood the time frame of the Red Wave. If there was ever a time when he needed to be heard, it was now…and wasn’t that just the way? You need something, you get a kick in the nuts by God.

Now the boy was on his own and the Bone Man was almost to Griswold’s house. L’il Scarecrow was walking in harm’s way and he hoped there was something, however small, he could do to help. “This being a ghost shit just sucks.”

(3)

The room was totally black and after that huge crashing impact of the trapdoor swinging down everything settled into an ugly silence. Crow felt the floor under him, but he couldn’t see it.

“Frank?” he whispered.

Nothing. Then, “Crow…?”

“Vince? Where are you? Where’s Frank?”

There was a rustling sound and then bright white as LaMastra turned on his flashlight. Shielding his eyes from the glare, Crow looked around. LaMastra was on his knees, the light in one hand while he reached down to pick up his fallen shotgun.

“Are you hurt?”

“No” LaMastra answered. “You?”

“I’m good. Where’s Frank?”

LaMastra swept the light toward the door. “I think he’s outside. Damn, look at that shit.”

Crow got to his feet and examined the doorway, running his hand over the massive panel that now sealed the door shut. He fished out his pocket Maglite and played its beam over the ceiling. “Son of a bitch set a good trap. Look.” He pointed with the light. “See there? He made it look like someone had done a bad patch job on the ceiling, with nails sticking down through from upstairs like some shithead carpenter did it using nails that were too big.” He turned the light back onto the doorway. “It’s a perfect fit. That whole panel was a trapdoor attached to the ceiling. Soon as we tripped the wire it swung down on hinges and slammed itself flush into the doorframe. No way for us to pry it out, no angle for leverage even if we had the pry bars.” He pounded on it. “Solid as a bitch. And those nails…they were the teeth of the trap. Holy shit…”

LaMastra set down his flash and used the side of his fist to pound on the door. “Frank!” he yelled. “Frank—you out there?”

There was no sound at all from the other side.

“I think he got hit,” Crow said. “When it fell, it looked like he got hit.”

“Must have knocked him out, otherwise he’d answer.”

Crow didn’t think so. Not all of the nails in that trapdoor were intended to seal the door. There were a couple of dozen right in the middle. He saw the light shine on them a second before it hit Ferro. The trapdoor must weigh half a ton; nothing less would have made it move so fast or hit so hard. All that weight pushing those nails? Crow’s heart sank.

“We have to get out of here, Vince.”

“Give Frank a minute…he’ll get us out.”

“I don’t think so.”

LaMastra half turned and shot him a vicious look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just what I said. Maybe Frank’s okay, maybe he’s not, but right now you and me are locked in this friggin’ place. No way I’m going to stand around and wait. What if the roaches come back?”

The big detective glared at him, his features made harsh by fear and the glare of the flashlights. “Frank’s okay,” Vince said stubbornly.

“Whatever you say, Vince…but I’m going to look for another way out of here.”

He turned away and surveyed the room. To his left a staircase led upward into total blackness, to his right were the French doors that had been part of the trap. The doors hung open, their tripwire snapped. Crow peered cautiously through into the next room. “Looks empty. Maybe we can get out through the kitchen door. It should be through there.”

Grudgingly, LaMastra joined him, “What if the back door’s bricked up?”

“Then we’ll find the stairs, go up, see if maybe there’s a way out. If we have to maybe we can blast a hole in the roof and climb the hell out.”

“No other option?”

“We find the cellar stairs, go down there. See if there’s a way out.”

LaMastra looked at him like he was crazy. “Why on earth would we want to do that?”

“We don’t. I’m for the direct route, right through the house and out. But we have to expect more booby traps.”

“You think anyone’s here?”

“No way to know, but if there is, they sure as hell know we’re here. C’mon, let’s move.”

“I see anyone, man, I’m gonna kill them.”

“Works for me.” Crow used his shotgun barrel to push open the doors. They fanned back from the doorway just in case there was another wire, but nothing happened; after a moment they moved into the next room. A threadbare area rug lay on the floor, rumpled and smelling of rat droppings; an old-fashioned couch was pushed back against one wall. Two doorways led from this room: one was naked of any door and emptied into a dark hallway that jagged right out of sight; the other had a heavy door that was tightly shut. Crow moved to the closed door and examined it and the ceiling above. No visible traps.

“Go slow,” LaMastra warned as Crow reached for the handle. The knob turned easily with no telltale resistance, and it swung open on creaky hinges; but there was nothing on the other side besides a neat wall of new-laid bricks.

“I guess we go the other way,” Crow said, aware that there was the clear sense of being herded into a more complex trap. Their options were limited, so he moved through the open doorway. They shined their lights over every inch of it and saw no trip wires.

They moved down the hallway and this emptied out into another room filled with dust and shadows. A water-damaged breakfront sagged on three legs against one wall, and on the opposite wall a battered old oak table stood, supporting a stack of red bricks. Another huge pile of rotted carpet filled the center of the room. Before they moved farther Crow shined his light across the room and could see the white bulk of an old refrigerator beyond the far doorway.

“There’s the kitchen,” Crow said. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They moved slowly, hugging the walls in order to keep a clear line of fire across the whole room. At the kitchen door they peered in and saw the faintest line of pale daylight seeping in on one side of the boarded window.

“Finally,” LaMastra said, “it’s about time we caught a break.”

He took a step forward and his leg passed through an almost invisible infrared beam that cut across the doorway an inch off the floor. Neither man saw it; neither of them expected anything that sophisticated. LaMastra’s heel cut the line and at once there was an audible click and then a sound like a firecracker and suddenly a section of the kitchen floor lunged up at them, nailheads tearing through old linoleum. It was the reverse of the front-door trap and Crow, a half step behind LaMastra, saw the movement and grabbed the bigger man’s shoulder and yanked back, screaming as he back-pedaled them both away from the trap.

They staggered back onto the rumpled carpet—which immediately buckled under him. Crow fell backward and down, and with LaMastra’s weight accelerating the rate of fall they plunged through the massive and perfectly disguised hole in the dining room floor and plummeted into blackness.

(4)

Vic looked down at his wristwatch. 1:18 P.M. Above him the sky was clouding up nicely, and he nodded approval. Right on time.

A car rumbled across the bridge and Vic waited, looking up a the tiny particles of dust that drifted down from the heavy timbers, then peered down at the wires he held in his fingers. He twisted the leads onto the terminals of the heavy-duty battery. Once the wires were in place he slid the whole assembly into the niche he’d carved out of the bank. Vic removed a diagram from his shirt pocket and consulted it, glancing up to check that the lines on the map matched the long strands of wires that trailed up the supports to the three bundles that were each nestled into their proper places.

He picked up the clock and set the time, then very carefully pulled the button that primed the clock to ring at just the right moment.

“Boom!” he said softly as he backed away from the timer.

As he trudged up the bank toward his truck he tugged a notebook out of the back pocket of his jeans, humming as he walked. There was still a lot to do, but he was ahead of schedule, and that made him happy. He wanted the Man to see that he was still the most reliable of his army, still his right hand. Yeah, he thought as he opened the truck door and climbed in, he’d get all of it done in time, and maybe a little more besides.

He was grinning as he spun the wheel and headed back toward town.

(5)

There was an unreal moment of mingled darkness and trapped flashlight illumination, a sensation of floating that did not feel at all like falling. Then they hit the cellar floor so hard it sent agony shrieking upward through Crow’s whole body; the carpet padded their fall to a degree, but Crow landed badly, hitting first on the edge of his heels and then falling backward to slam the flat of his back on the concrete floor. Instantly the world exploded in white light and thunder as LaMastra accidentally jerked the trigger of his shotgun and blasted a hole in the carpet inches from Crow’s cheek. Small flecks of gunpowder sizzled into his skin.

The rug collapsed on top of them, and Crow groaned as the weight of the heavy material drove the hard scabbard of his sword case into his spine. Beside him, LaMastra snarled in confusion as he thrashed at the carpet, and with every movement he elbowed or kicked Crow.

“Vince, stop it for Christ’s sake!” Crow bellowed and emphasized it with his own elbow. It caught the detective somewhere soft and there was a whoosh of air and a grunt of pain.

They both stopped thrashing and let the moment settle around them.

“Are you hurt?” Crow asked.

“Everything hurts,” was LaMastra’s muffled reply.

“Let’s get this frigging carpet off us…”

But that fast the folds of the carpet were whipped away from Crow by unseen hands. While LaMastra still struggled to get free of the carpet, Crow scrambled around onto his hands and knees, his heart hammering in his chest, scrabbling for the fallen flashlight, but his desperate fingers sent it rolling away. The light pinwheeled around and then came to an abrupt stop as someone caught it with the toe of a polished shoe.

On all fours, Crow stared at the face of the man who stood over them. The blood turned to ice in his veins and the world seemed to spin sideways into unreality as he watched the man bend down and pick up the Maglite.

Jimmy Castle held the light in his bone-white fingers. He held the beam under his chin the way a prankish child might at a campfire.

“Boo!” he said, and his mouth stretched wide to show two rows of jagged white teeth.