Scenes from the Secret History (The Secret History of the World) (24 page)

Pineys.

"Who told you that?" I said as levelly as I could.

"You did.  Back in school."

"Did I?"

It shook me to see how far I'd traveled from my roots.  As a scared, naive, self-deprecating frosh at
Rutgers I probably had indeed referred to myself as a Piney.  Now I never mentioned the word, not in reference to myself or anyone else.  I was a college educated woman; I was a respected professional who spoke with a colorless northeast accent.  No one in his right mind would consider me a Piney.

"Well, that was just a gag," I said.  "My family roots are back in the
Pine Barrens, but I am by no stretch of the imagination a Piney.  So I doubt I can help you."

"Oh, but you can!  The McKelston name is big in the Barrens.  Everybody knows it.  You've got plenty of relatives there."

"Really?  How do you know?"

Suddenly he looked sheepish.

"Because I've been into the Barrens a few times now.  No one will open up to me.  I'm an outsider.  They don't trust me.  Instead of answering my questions, they play games with me.  They say they don't know what I'm talking about but they know someone who might, then they send me driving in circles.  I was lost out there for two solid days last month.  And believe me, I was getting scared.  I thought I'd never find my way out."

"You wouldn't be the first.  Plenty of people, many of them experienced hunters, have gone into the Barrens and never been seen again.  You'd better stay out."

His hand darted across the table and clutched mine.

"You've got to help me, Kathy.  My whole future hinges on this."

I was shocked.  He'd always called me "Mac."  Even in bed back in our college days he'd never called me "Kathy."  Gently, I pulled my hand free, saying.

"Come on, Jon–"

He leaned back and stared out the window at the circling gulls. 

"If I do this right, do something really definitive, it may get me back into Miskatonic where I can finish my doctoral thesis."

I was immediately suspicious.

"I thought you said you 'left' Miskatonic, Jon.  Why can't you get back in without it?"

"'Irregularities,'" he said, still not looking at me.  "The old farts in the antiquities department didn't like where my research was leading me."

"This 'reality' business?"

"Yes."

"They told you that?"

Now he looked at me.

"Not in so many words, but I could tell."  He leaned forward.  His eyes were brighter than ever.  "They've got books and manuscripts locked in huge safes there, one-of-a-kind volumes from times most scholars think of as pre-history.  I managed to get a pass, a forgery that got me into the vaults.  It's incredible what they have there, Mac. 
Incredible!
  I've got to get back there.  Will you help me?"

His intensity was startling.  And tantalizing.

"What would I have to do?"

"Just accompany me into the
Pine Barrens.  Just for a few trips.  If I can use you as a reference, I know they'll talk to me about the Jersey Devil.  After that, I can take it on my own.  All I need is some straight answers from these people and I'll have my primary sources.  I may be able to track a folk myth to its very roots!  I'll give you credit in the book, I'll pay you, anything, Mac, just don't leave we twisting in the wind!"

He was positively frantic by the time he finished speaking.

"Easy, Jon.  Easy.  Let me think."

Tax season was over and I had a loose schedule for the summer.  And even if I was looking ahead to a tight schedule, so what?  Frankly, the job wasn't anywhere near as satisfying as it once had been.  The challenge of overcoming the business community's prejudice and doubts about a woman accountant, the thrill of building a string of clients, that was all over.  Everything was mostly routine now.  Plus, I no longer had a husband.  No children to usher toward adulthood.  I had to admit that my life was pretty empty at that moment.  And so was I.  Why not take a little time to inspect my roots and help Crazy Creighton put his life on track, if such a thing was possible?  In the bargain maybe I could gain a little perspective on my own life.

"All right, Jon," I said.  "I'll do it."

Creighton's eyes lit with true pleasure, a glow distinct from the feverish intensity since he'd sat down.  He thrust both his hands toward me.

"I could kiss you, Mac!  I can't tell you how much this means to me!  You have no idea how important this is!"

He was right about that.  No idea at all.

You can find the rest of it here in my second collection, aptly titled:
The Barrens and Others

October

A Day in the Life

I resurrected Repairman Jack back in a 1988 novelette that has only Jack as its connection to the Secret History.  But since he’s the Heir…

One of my phone friends, Ed Gorman (with whom I've spent countless hours in conversation but have never met) called to tell me that he and Marty Greenberg were co-editing an anthology called
Stalkers
.  Would I care to contribute?  I said I'd been itching to revive Repairman Jack, the lead character from
The Tomb
, but at less than novel length.  How about a Jack story?  Ed, a Repairman Jack fan since the git-go, told me I
had
to do it. 

The Tomb
had been published four years earlier.  Roger Corman’s New World Pictures had optioned the novel but a combination of low-rent antics by Fred Olen Ray and a lousy screenplay (they moved the action to Pasadena!) had the project dead in the water.  I dashed off a spec script in an eleventh-hour attempt to save it, but too late.  Maybe just as well.  The rakoshi – the Bengali temple demons who provide the horror – would have presented an almost insurmountable challenge in those pre-CGI days. How do you make them look real?  The line between horror and hilarity is a couple of nanometers thick.  A rakosh is scary; a guy in a rubber suit is dumb.

As I write this (2014), Beacon Films has had
The Tomb
in development hell for 18 years. 

But back in the late 80s, the Hollywood connection provided an ulterior motive for writing a new Repairman Jack story.  I had created a number of original action sequences for the Repairman Jack screenplay I’d sent to New World, and I wanted to protect them.  The best way to do that was to copyright them in a story.  They're all in "A Day in the Life."  

And for those who care, the Tram character previously appeared in "Dat-Tay-Vao." 

A Day in the Life

(sample)

When the cockroach made a right turn up the wall, Jack flipped another
shuriken
across the room.  The steel points of the throwing star drove into the wallboard just above the bug's long antennae.  It backed up and found itself hemmed in on all sides now by four of the stars.

"Did it!" Jack said from where he lay across the still
-made hotel bed.

He counted the shuriken protruding from the wall.  A dozen of them traveled upward in a gentle arc above and behind the barely functioning TV, ending in a tiny square where the roach was trapped.

Check that.  It was free again.  Crawled over one of the shuriken and was now continuing on its journey to wherever.  Jack let it go and rolled onto his back on the bedspread.

Bored
.

And hot.  He was dressed in jeans and a loose, heavy sweater under an oversized lightweight jacket, both dark blue; a black-and-orange knitted cap was jammed on the top of his head.  He'd turned the thermostat all the way down but the room remained an oven.  He didn't want to risk taking anything off because, when the buzzer sounded, he had to hit the ground running.

He glanced over at the dusty end table where the little Walkman-sized box with the antenna sat in silence.

"Come on, already," he mumbled to it.  "Let's do it."

Reilly and his sleazos were due to make their move tonight.  What was taking them so long to get started?  Almost one a.m. already – three hours here in this fleabag.  He was starting to itch.  He could handle only so much TV without getting drowsy.  Even without the lulling drone of some host interviewing some actor he'd never heard of, the heat was draining him. 

Fresh air.  Maybe that would help.

Jack got up, stretched, and stepped to the window.  A clear almost-Halloween night out there, with a big moon rising over the city.  He gripped the handles and pulled.  Nothing.  The damn thing wouldn't budge.  He was checking the edges of the sash when he heard the faint crack of a rifle.  The bullet came through the glass two inches to the left of his head, peppering his face with tiny sharp fragments as it whistled past his ear.

Jack dropped to the floor.  He waited.  No more shots.  Keeping his head below the level of the windowsill, he rose to a crouch, then leapt for the lamp on the end table at the far side of the bed, grabbed it, and rolled to the floor with it.  Another shot spat through the glass and whistled through the room as his back thudded against the floor.  He turned off the lamp.

The other lamp, the one next to the TV, was still on – sixty watts of help for the shooter.  And whoever was shooting had to know Jack would be going for it next.  He'd be ready.

On his belly, Jack slid along the industrial grade carpet toward the end of the bed until he had an angle where the bulb was visible under the shade.  He pulled out his next to last
shuriken
and spun it toward the bulb.  With an electric pop it flared blue-white and left the room dark except for the flickering glow from the TV.

Immediately Jack popped his head above the bed and looked out the window.  Through the spider
-webbed glass he caught sight of a bundled figure turning and darting away across the neighboring rooftop.  Moonlight glinted off the long barrel of a high-powered rifle, flashed off the lens of a telescopic sight, then he was gone.

A high
-pitched beep made him jump.  The red light on the signal box was blinking like mad.  Kuropolis wanted help.  Which meant Reilly had struck.

"Swell."

*

Not a bad night, George Kuropolis thought, wiping down the counter in front of the slim young brunette as she seated herself.  Not a great night, but still to have half a dozen customers at this hour was good.  And better yet, Reilly and his creeps hadn't shown up.

Maybe they'd bother somebody else tonight.

"What'll it be?" he asked the brunette.

"Tea, please," she said with a smile.  A nice smile.  She was dressed nice and had decent jewelry on.  Not exactly overdressed for the neighborhood, but better than the usual.

George wished he had more customers of her caliber.  And he
should
have them.  Why the hell not?  Didn't the chrome inside and out sparkle?  Couldn't you eat off the floor?  Wasn't everything he served made right here on the premises?

"Sure.  Want some pie?"

"No, thank you."

"It's good.  Blueberry.  Made it myself."

The smile again.  "No, thanks.  I'm on a diet."

"Sure," he mumbled as he turned away to get her some hot water.  "Everyone's on a goddamn diet.  Diets are gettin' hazardous to my health."

Just then the front door burst open and a white-haired man in his mid-twenties leaped in with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands.  He pointed it at the ceiling and let loose a round at the fixture over the cash register.  The
boom
of the blast was deafening as glass showered everything.

Matt Reilly was here.

Four more of his gang crowded in behind him.  George recognized them: Reece was the black with the white fringe leather jacket; Rafe had the blue Mohican, Tony had the white; and Cheeks was the baby-faced skinhead.