Jokers Club (22 page)

I crossed the boulevard and Main Street to the opposite sidewalk. I walked past the closed shops until I got to Mr. Under’s place.

A bell rang over the door as I opened it. I walked to the counter and looked over at Mr. Under who sat at his work table. A wide smile broke over his face when he looked up and saw me.

“Are you next?” he asked.

There was an ominous familiarity about the question.

“I hope not,” was all I could think to reply.

He got up from his chair and approached the counter, leaning his angular frame forward in an almost leering manner, smile never leaving his face.

“I’ve been following the events up at the Tower House,” he said.

“They haven’t been very pleasant.”

“There’s a lot in life that isn’t very pleasant.”

There was a chalky smell of dust in the air. I looked around the small shop. Even though he had stopped working, I could still hear a pinging in my head.

“You’re working late,” I commented.

“Business has been good.” His smile would not subside.

“And that makes you happy?” I queried.

“It keeps me busy. I like being busy.”

“Then I can help you out.” I removed the piece of paper from my pocket. “I have something for you.” I handed it to him.

“Something – for me?” He took it in his hands with childlike glee. “What is it?”

“My epitaph.”

He looked at me queerly, smile fading this time, and unfolded the paper. As his eyes moved over the words, I envisioned them as I had written them. My full name on the top, with my birth date beneath it. Then a few lines below that, six short words.

He looked up at me. “The second date is missing.”

“I’ll leave that for you to fill in later.”

He glanced back down at the paper and read out loud the last line:
He was a teller of tales.

He looked up at me and his smile returned. “I like tales. How about telling me a tale?”

I thought about the stack of pages sitting on the desk in my room at the inn.

“I can’t,” I replied. “I haven’t finished it yet.”

I stepped onto the sidewalk. The realization that I hadn’t really seen Woody made what I had to do – fast — clear to me. I looked up and down the street. It was quiet. Then I noticed a figure standing in the gazebo. It gave me a chill. Not again, I thought.

The figure waved to me.

It was Carrothead.

“Hullo,” he called as he continued waving.

I thought about going over and talking to him, find out what he saw at the ballpark, ask him about the toupee. But then I thought it best to avoid him. There was something else I wanted to do.

I walked down the sidewalk, ignoring him. He continued to call out to me.

As I passed the Loon Tavern, I paused and glanced in the window. I scanned the inside of the bar. Nick the barber was in there, sitting by himself at a table, dark spots covering the front of his smock. He was probably waiting for Mr. Under to join him.

Then I noticed Oliver sitting at the bar talking to a woman. When the woman turned her head, I noticed it was Mary. I felt a twinge of jealousy, but I couldn’t bother with that now. I had something to do. Now was my chance if I hurried.

I crossed the street and headed toward the direction of the inn. Behind me, Carrothead was still calling out to me, becoming fainter until, by the time I reached the inn, I could either no longer hear him or he had given up on me.

When I entered the inn, I greeted Bob Wolfe behind the counter and headed up the stairs. I could feel his suspicious eyes on me the whole way up the first flight. And I don’t know how it was possible, but when I passed by the moose head, those eyes followed me too.

All the rooms were dark on the second floor. Professor Bonz was still out on the water. Mary was at the bar with Oliver.

I continued up to the third floor and went straight to the stairway that led to the tower room and headed up to the door at the top. When I opened it and walked inside, I had the strange sensation I was stepping into a trap.

This was too easy.

I looked around the room, trying to decide where to start first. It was dark, so I went to the window and lifted the shade to let in what light was thrown from the moon and the street lamps outside. I didn’t want to turn the light on inside. It would be like a beacon in a lighthouse tower from the outside.

I decided to start with the dresser. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for. A weapon is what I was hoping to find, maybe the same hunting knife Oliver used to always carry with him as a kid, but anything would do. Anything that could resemble some kind of evidence. Something to make me believe Carrothead innocently took Lonny’s toupee.

Knowing now that I had not been seeing Woody around made one thing clear. From the beginning it had seemed Woody was the obvious choice as the killer because he had been in a mental asylum. That coupled with his mysterious disappearance. But Woody was not at Acorn Estates because he was crazy. He was there because of a physical condition brought on by a psychological problem.

Oliver on the other hand, I truly believed had a sick, twisted mind. I think it had been like that since his childhood.

There was nothing in the drawers and I quickly moved on to the closet. I was trying to proceed as fast as I could. I did not like being here. The closet yielded nothing, and I checked the desk and under the bed and mattress. Nothing. This whole idea was futile. I felt like an idiot. Did I think I was some kind of detective? Even Hooper wasn’t this stupid.

I stood in the middle of the room, staring at the window and the night beyond it, frustrated. I had wanted to find something – anything – that I could bring to Hooper and stop Oliver.

Then, for the second time that day, I was frozen by the sound of breathing behind me.

I prayed to God it was my own I was hearing but realized I was holding my breath. I felt like I was in a state of suspended animation. I turned in the slowest motion possible. Standing in the dark behind me was Oliver.

“Looking for something?” he said.

I glanced down at his hand and saw moonlight gleam off the blade of a knife. I looked back up at his eyes, trying to think of some reasonable excuse for my presence, but there was no reasoning in those eyes.

“You know,” he said, a little smirk on his face. “I felt all along it would come down to this. Me and you.”

I took one step back. “I guess I did too.”

“You’re a loser, Thorn.” He stepped forward. “Just like all the others. You’re all a bunch of pathetic losers.”

I took another step back, looking over his shoulder at the door to the stairway behind him. There was no way to get to it without going through him first.

“What makes you so above us all?” I asked, almost spitting the question out.

“Because I have strength and power.” His face grimaced. “I’m a survivor.” He took a step forward.

The room was dark and the shadows seemed to cling to him, dripping from him. The only thing that stood out was the gleaming blade and his contorted face. He moved forward.

Then he stopped. He tipped his head back and started laughing hysterically.

“You know what this reminds me of?” he asked. He didn’t wait for an answer. “You and me, here in this room? It reminds me of when I used to put two praying mantises in a jar so they would fight to the death. Do you remember that?”

I nodded.

“Well, that’s what we are. A couple of praying mantises in a jar.” His face grew serious. “And I’m going to bite your head off.”

He lunged at me.

The reality of that blade coming at me brought on a tremendous wave of fear. I jumped back, out of the way. He then swung his arm, swiping at me. I ducked, then bounced back up and grabbed onto his wrist. All I could think of was keeping that blade away from my body. He tried to push me away, but I locked my right arm around his neck. Our faces were inches apart. I glared into his vacant eyes a saw his wild grin. I realized I had seen this face before. It was the same face he wore the night he beat the lamb to death.

He was much stronger than I and soon spun me around and flung me to the floor. When my hold was broken, I felt instant panic knowing that knife hand was free and coming after me.

He jumped down on me but I brought my feet up and kicked him in the gut. I think he lost his wind for a second, and I rose and turned toward the door.

I couldn’t move fast enough, and suddenly his arms wrapped around me, the hand with the knife holding the blade inches from my face. I had a magnified view of the blade and could almost feel the searing pain that would result if it pierced my flesh.

I pushed backwards, driving with my feet, with all the adrenalin my extreme fear pumped through my body. We crashed into a wall and his gripped relaxed. I spun around and smashed a fist into the side of his face. He was momentarily stunned, but then the arm with the knife came flailing up.

I felt a jolt of pain as the knife brushed my side.

I quickly grabbed onto his knife arm with both hands, just below his wrist. The most important thing on my mind was to hang on to that arm. Keep that knife at bay.

With his free hand, Oliver smashed a fist into my face, once then twice, then again. He literally beat me to the ground and I lay on the floor at his feet.

“Come on, Thorn, you bastard!” he screamed. “Get up!”

I looked up at him, fear and loathing churning in my mind. Then with suddenness that caught him completely by surprise, I sprang up and threw myself into his chest, pushing him backwards into the window.

There was a crash of glass.

His body was off balance and falling backwards through the pane. His free hand reached out to me. I extended my hand to grab it, but at the last moment before our fingers touched, I pulled mine back.

He fell backwards out the window.

I leaned out and watched him fall.

His arms were gesticulating wildly, the right hand still gripping the knife. His face held an expression I had never seen on him before. One of utterly mad fright. He screamed all the way down, until his back struck the porch roof.

There was a loud crack, but I wasn’t sure if it was his spine snapping or one of the wooden porch beams. Maybe it was a combination of both. His body bounced off the shingles, as if they were made of rubber, and flipped over so I could no longer see his tortured face.

He landed stomach first on the spikes of the wrought-iron fence. I saw the pointed ends pop out through his back.

Oh my God!

I turned and raced out of the room and down the stairs to the third floor hall. I almost barreled over Mary who stood in the middle of the landing.

“What have you done, Geoff?” she screamed, her face horrified. “Christ! What have you done?”

I ran past her without a word, racing down the stairs, taking them three and four at a time. It felt as if I were going down a dozen flights of stairs. I passed by the moose head on the first floor landing. It turned to look at me.

“Christ, Geoffrey!” it said. “What have you done?”

I didn’t think I’d ever reach the bottom. When I did, I burst out the front door.

Oliver’s body hung over the fence, the bloody spikes protruding from his back. His hand still held the knife, but then his fingers slowly uncurled and it clattered to the stone walkway with a reverberating rattle.

I went over, kneeling in front of him, wondering what to do but knowing there was nothing I could do. His head hung down so I couldn’t see his face, but I was sure he was dead.

Then his head lifted and an arm shot out and grabbed me by the front of my shirt. I was horrified.

His wild eyes looked into mine.

“You think it’s over?” he cried, spitting up blood through clenched teeth. “It’s far from over!”

Then his hand relaxed and his head dropped back down. This time I was sure he was dead. I sat back on my heels. My whole body felt sapped of life. There was a rush of footsteps and I looked to my right as Mary ran out of the inn. Her eyes were wide, looking back and forth between me and Oliver’s body.

“Oh God!” she cried. “Why did you do this?” Her voice was almost angry. “Why did you have to do this?”

I tried to say something, tried to explain that I was only defending myself. But I couldn’t find my voice.

Then Bob Wolfe came onto the porch, his hunting rifle in hand, and he pointed it right at my head.

“Don’t you dare make a move,” he said.

I didn’t. Because I had no doubt he would gladly pull the trigger.

It was early June, a time when kids were anticipating the end of the school year, the beginning of summer vacation, when a kid could really be a kid. It was magical time when the days and nights of summer would soon be turned over to the children. The world of summer would become their playground.

Memorial Day had brought forth the onslaught of the tourist season. Retired folks were the first wave to arrive. The end of the school year would bring the second wave – the families. The cottages on the far side of the lake were gradually springing to life, the inns were swelling to full capacity, and the summer businesses were in full bloom.

Another rite of summer was beginning for twelve-year-old Geoffrey Thorn. It was the haircut his mother always made him get at the first hint of hot weather: the traditional trimming of his brown curly locks. It was as if she was worried he would collapse from heatstroke if he didn’t get the haircut. Maybe she thought his thick hair made him sweat too much.

But what was really sweating were his palms as he approached the barber chair like a death row inmate on his final walk. No longer could he enjoy the anxious but somehow comforting waiting period, flipping through thumb-worn comics and magazines while the other customers one by one stepped up to the dreaded chair and put themselves completely in the hands of Nick the barber. As the last customer stepped out of the shop, seemingly pleased, all moisture evaporated in Geoff’s constricted throat. The slow shuffle across the tiled floor did nothing to prolong the inevitable. When he climbed up into the vinyl seat, his body stiffened as his nerves began to freeze up on him.

It was more than just the haircuts that made him nervous. That was bad enough, that feeling of helplessness while someone did something to you that you had no control over. It was Nick himself that Geoff had grown to fear. Nick simply did not inspire trust and confidence. The lenses in his black horned-rim glasses were thick. What did the world look like through those spectacles? How distorted did things appear? His breath spewed forth the smell of mints with every exhale, but Geoff swore he could discern, hidden beneath that minty odor, the barest hint of alcohol. Was he drunk? His hands seemed to shake from time to time, spasms shooting through his knobby fingers.

Geoffrey noticed that Nick’s white barber’s smock never failed to contain a small red spot, large enough for him to notice, but insignificant enough for everyone else to dismiss. How many backs of necks had he gouged open with the points of his scissors? How many times had he accidentally clipped the tip of someone’s ear? Geoff thought Nick probably had a drawer full of ear tips. He could string them on a piece of fishing line and wear them like hunter’s trophies.

Geoff wrote a story inspired by Nick. It was about a senior citizen vampire whose teeth were no good, so he opened a barber shop that only operated at night. Whenever a customer was unlucky enough to be the last one of the night, the barber would dig his scissors into the person’s jugular and suck out his blood. Whenever he went to get a haircut, he couldn’t help but think about the story.

As Nick stood beside the chair, Geoff could see, out of the corner of his eye, the tear-shaped red stain on the left breast of his smock. Nick placed the barber’s apron over Geoff’s body and began to tie it in the back of his neck. It felt like a noose on his throat, too tight as always. He couldn’t get any air. He gasped for breath, imagining his face turning blue, then purple. It felt like a tourniquet, forcing his jugular to bulge outward.

“The usual?” Nick said, flashing a grin of rotting teeth.

The steel scissors clicked in his knotted fingers as he snapped them open and closed rapidly. Geoff winced, squeezing his eyes shut as he saw the blurring blades approach his head.

When Geoff stepped out of the barber shop twenty minutes later, glad once again to breathe, daylight was starting to fade. He hadn’t realized how late it had gotten. His mother let him walk to the barbershop as long as he made it back before dark. Now it was going to be close.

And he wanted to get home before dark. Darkness scared him now. Darkness reminded him of that night behind the Tin Man’s house. Darkness reminded him of Jason Nightingale.

A pinging sounded to his left. Mr. Under was up working late, carving out another dead person’s name on a gravestone. Just like Jason’s. Whose turn was it now?

A clicking sounded behind him, startling him, and he turned to see Nick locking the door to the barber shop. Nick smiled at Geoff.

“Need a ride, sonny?” Dirty, rotten teeth smiled at him.

“All set,” Geoff said, looking at the red spot on the barber’s smock and quickly crossing the street to the boardwalk. He looked behind him when he reached the wooden planks and saw the barber still standing outside his shop, staring at him. It looked like great big splotches of red coated the front of his smock. The old man waved. Geoff turned away.

Out on the middle of the lake an empty rowboat drifted aimlessly.

Carrothead was up ahead on the boardwalk and Geoff didn’t want an encounter with him, so he kept his head down and quickened his steps, hoping to just walk right by without contact.

As he passed him, Carrothead reached out and grabbed his arm. Geoff spun around.

“Hey!” Carrothead yelled. Geoff stared up at him, wishing he would just leave him alone. He wanted everybody to leave him alone.

“Someone’s looking for you,” Carrothead said and held out his walkie-talkie.

“What are you talking about?” Geoff stared at the device that emanated only static.

“Go on,” Carrothead said, extending his arm. “He wants to talk to you.”

“Who?” Geoff leaned away, as if the walkie-talkie were diseased, just like Carrothead’s brain.

“You know who.” Carrothead laughed in a deep throaty rumble.

Was it him? Geoff wondered. Could it be Jason? Was that who he was talking about? But it couldn’t be. Jason couldn’t talk. Jason had torn into his own throat with his fingernails because he couldn’t get any air, so his throat wouldn’t work. He couldn’t say anything and never would, because now he was buried underground in a box that must have felt very much like that refrigerator. A small, confined space with no air and no way out.

No way out, that is, unless someone had opened the door.

That’s all it would have taken, someone opening the door. And if Geoff had thought to do it sooner than he did, Jason would have been okay. Sure he would have been steamed and probably would have told on them, but that would have been better than this. Any punishment would have been better than feeling miserable during the day and frightened during the night.

The night.

It was getting darker and Geoff had to get out of the night. He looked at Carrothead’s drooling grin.

“I don’t want to talk to anybody,” Geoff said and turned to run up Autumn Avenue. This time he didn’t look back, but could feel Carrothead’s eyes on him. In the distance, he could still hear the pinging from Mr. Under’s shop.

Geoff slowed as he passed the Peas sisters’ house; two of them were sitting in rockers on their front porch. At least a dozen cats were sprawled over the porch steps, railing and floor.

“Geoffrey!” one of the sisters called out.

He turned to look. The cats stirred, rising up onto their haunches and stretching.

“Come here, Geoffrey,” she called again. “We have milk and cookies!” The other sister erupted with bellowing laughter, her great fat body shaking, the wooden planks of the porch screeching under the strain.

Geoff didn’t answer them, but he kept looking over his shoulder.

“Hurry home, Geoffrey,” the first sister continued. “It’s getting dark!” Then she joined her sister in laughing, and the cats began hissing at him. Several of the cats jumped down from the porch and sprinted across the lawn after him.

Geoff started running again, faster than before till the house was out of sight, but he could still hear the faint sound of the Peas sisters’ laughter. Looking behind him, several of the furry little creatures were still on his heels, hissing and screeching as they gained on him.

Geoff cut right between a pair of houses, figuring he’d take a shortcut through a few backyards to get to Maple Street. At one point, passing a row of elms, he stopped, crouching behind one to catch his breath. He peeked around the corner of the tree trunk. The dark yard before him was quiet. All he saw was an empty sandbox with an overturned plastic bucket and a discarded shovel; beside it was an abandoned, rusty swing set. There was no sign of the cats. Maybe they had lost his scent and given up the chase.

Geoff crept across the yard at a slower, but still steady, pace. He didn’t like how quiet the night had become. That was usually an ominous sign. At least that was how it was in most of the stories he wrote.

Up ahead was a stone well.

He tried to figure out whose yard he was in. The house didn’t look familiar. Maple Street should have been just over the crest ahead.

A moaning sound drifted toward him. He stopped and looked around. Was someone hurt?

It sounded like it was coming from … the well.

He approached slowly, still confused as to why he’d never noticed this well before. It was just sitting there, in the middle of an overgrown lawn, the crumbling rocks barely holding together to form the circular walls. When he got to it, he laid both hands onto the edge of its cold stones and leaned forward to peer down into its emptiness.

A moan emanated from below, faint.

“Hello?” Geoff called, looking into the black hole for some movement. “Is someone down there?” His voice echoed into the cavernous pit.

He heard a scraping sound as something stirred below. Had someone fallen down the well? There was definitely something moving down there. Maybe one of the Peas sisters’ cats fell in.

The scraping and scratching sounds got louder.

Something was climbing up the wall of the well.

“Help,” came a hoarse voice. Someone
was
down there.

“Hello,” Geoff called again.

“Geoffrey?” answered the voice.

Geoff’s heart froze. Whatever it was, it knew his name. He tried to back away, but his hands gripped the stones so tight his fingers were locked into place.

Clouds drifted away from the moon and it helped shed a little light down a few feet along the rim of the well. Geoffrey could hear heavy breathing as whomever it was struggled to climb up the rocks. There was a shape emerging from the dark center of the well.

Geoff watched the line on the stones where the moonlight stopped and the darkness began. A hand, then another, reached up over that edge. The tips of the fingers were bloody, probably from gripping the stones hand over hand during the climb.

A face broke through the dark surface, like rising out of a lake, and Geoff saw Jason’s bulging eyes, pale face and blackened tongue.

“Help me, Geoff.” The words lolled out of its constricted throat as a hand extended toward him.

The shock broke Geoff’s grip and he backed away from the well.

“No!”

Geoff turned and ran, looking back over his shoulder to see Jason clambering over the side of the stone structure. He kept running and didn’t stop till he reached his house. He burst through the door out of breath, locking it, and the night, behind him.

“What’s all the commotion?” his mother asked from the living room.

“Nothing,” Geoff mumbled and began to head upstairs.

“Wait, let me see your haircut.”

Geoff stopped halfway up and turned to face his mother who had gotten off the couch and came to the bottom of the stairs.

“Very nice,” she said. “Nick always does a good job.”

Are you kidding? Geoff thought. The man’s a butcher.

“Now go do any homework you might have.”

Geoff turned and bounded the rest of the way up the stairs. Once in his room he shut his door and went to his desk. But no, it wasn’t homework he was going to do. He had finished that in school. But there was something else he had to do. No, wanted to do. No, needed to do.

He opened up one of the desk drawers and looked at the pile of typed pages inside. There were his stories. Tales of horror he had written over the past couple years. Many times after school he would sit in the clubhouse alone with a pen and a notebook and scribble out a tale. Then he convinced his parents to get him a typewriter at the used office supply store downtown, and he would type up his tales in his room at night.

And this was his stack of stories about all the horrible things his imagination could conjure up: Oscar the telepathic rat, the haunted well, the moose head that seeks revenge on the hunter, the ghostly baseball team, the prehistoric fish in the lake, the carnivorous caterpillar and many others.

Geoff looked above his desk at a shelf that held all the monster models he had made from the kits his parents got him for birthdays, Christmas, and sometimes just because they knew he liked them. The bookcase on the left held the horror novels and anthologies that inspired him over the years. On top of the bookcase were a collection of rubber dinosaurs. Posters from horror movies were tacked to the walls of his bedroom.

And before him on the desk was his typewriter.

He blew dust off it. The ribbon was probably dry. It had been a while since a tale of terror had been typed with these keys. Not since that night at the Tin Man’s house. He grabbed a blank sheet of paper from another drawer and rolled it into the machine, then took a deep breath.

No, it had been awhile. He loved writing horror stories, loved letting his imagination loose where it would reach its tentacles out into the world and gather up the dark twisted things that existed out there in the night.

The night and the dark.

Now he knew there were horrible things out there for real. He had seen real horror in the Tin Man’s back yard when he climbed that mound of metal and opened that damn door. He had stared into the face of horror, into those panicked glassy eyes and into that dark mouth opened in a silent scream with its black tongue hanging out.