He had to put a stop to this somehow. Not to save somebody the pain and horror of being eaten. Not to save another homeless person.
He had to save his own skin.
He didn’t want to get in trouble.
Couldn’t afford to get in any kind of trouble of this magnitude.
As Gordon loaded the dishwasher he thought about his future, which was something he was beginning to take seriously, thanks to long talks with his parents. He wanted to go to college. His grades were fairly decent, and he was interested in Engineering. He wanted to go to college, major in Engineering, carve a future for himself. If he were arrested for the crimes he’d participated in, that would blow his future. He couldn’t let that happen. Why Scott wasn’t thinking about that was bewildering. Scott got better grades than Gordon, had a chance at being accepted into a good university. Scott’s parents were very successful executives and he knew they were grooming Scott for a similar path. Was Scott’s uncaring attitude rebellion against his parents? That was Gordon’s impression, but no way was he going to suggest this to Scott. That would only spell trouble.
The only way he could extract himself from this was to assist in cleaning up this latest mess, offer ways to cover their tracks, and then work on providing alibis for himself for the nights they kidnapped the two homeless people and John.
As Gordon finished loading the dishwasher he felt confident he could cover all of his tracks. He could also provide an excuse for not being able to participate in further trips into the bigger cities for future zombie procurement. He could take off for the Jersey shore to spend time with his grandparents, say that his parents had made him go and he couldn’t really get out of it. He friends believe that.
But there was the lingering problem of Zuck’s woods and the spell.
He had to break it somehow.
Scott broke his silent reverie by entering the kitchen bearing an empty garbage can. “Ready to take a look in the guest house to see what kind of work we have cut out for us?”
“The sooner the better,” Gordon answered. He closed and locked the dishwasher, turned it on.
Scott set the empty garbage can down and filled it with a new plastic lining. Steve and Dave had finished their respective tasks and were huddled near the rear sliding doors that led to the back yard. Gordon walked over to join them, already thinking of what he had to do next.
Talk to Count Gaines. Find out if there was a spell that would counter the one he’d cast in the woods.
Of course, that would mean confiding to Gaines.
Could he trust Tim Gaines?
He had to. If Gordon wanted to pry himself out of this mess, he had to extend a modicum of trust to Tim. Maybe he wouldn’t have to tell Gaines everything, maybe he could —
He debated this in his mind as he walked outside and headed toward the guest house with the guys. Tim Gaines was smart. He’d figure out what had happened. He would try to use this information and take it to the police.
But would they believe him?
Gordon didn’t think they would. The new Dean of the school, Jim Simmons, didn’t trust Gaines. The physical evidence of the grave robbery pointed to Gaines. And while it was largely unspoken, local perception of Gaines wasn’t very favorable. Everything he did was against the status quo, from his reading material to his taste in music, to his attitude. That perception was deep-seated, had settled firmly in the consciousness of pretty much everybody in town. It wouldn’t take much to plant further seeds of doubt in the public perception of Gaines and his new friends. All it required was digging some dirt on Al and George. Al would be easy. The guy had skated on the edge of being an outsider ever since the eighth grade, he hung out with Matt and Chelsea, and his parents used to be hippies or something like that. He’d have to do some digging on George, but he knew he could do it. He used to live in Dauphin County. An Internet search would probably reveal info on him. He could find some of George’s former classmates on MySpace or something, find out what he was like, then twist the feedback he received to dovetail with what was happening now.
He had law enforcement on his side. He had dirt. It would be easy to blackmail Gaines into helping him.
Help me find a spell to counteract what you helped me with in Zuck’s Woods and I won’t furnish the police with more evidence that you robbed that grave in Reamstown.
Gordon’s confidence was solid now. He knew Gaines wanted this latest episode to go away. He’d probably do anything to get the police to drop the whole matter. He could even sweeten the deal by assuring him that it wouldn’t happen again, which was true. Gordon had no intention of messing with that black magic shit again. The guys had no inclination to try it themselves, and Gordon doubted they even remembered the title of the book in question he’d gotten the spell from. They’d be unable to duplicate his efforts for another go round.
This was going to work.
They approached the guest house and Scott stepped forward, gripping the doorknob firmly. He glanced back at the others and Gordon met his gaze with fierce determination. Let’s get this done. Scott nodded, and then he opened the door.
Chapter Sixteen
Ripple effects.
Like throwing a stone in a still body of water, an individual’s actions reverberate through life. A manufacturing plant manager laying off workers with a stroke of a pen to pad the compensation of the company executives affected those workers’ families, their wives and children. A slip down the economic ladder could mean hard times both financially and psychologically. In the mind of a child, that slip could mean a drastic change in their future that would, in turn, affect their future partners, their future children, and anybody whose lives they touched. Likewise, the choices one made upon deciding whether or not to enter college had similar effects. Choose the wrong major and stay with it for the wrong reasons and one could end up a lonely, bitter, angry person who, in turn, could affect everybody they touched in their lives.
So it was with magic.
And it did not concern the forces beyond who bestowed the practitioner of magic with their dark boons.
Their job was to grant the magician their wish.
No more, no less.
The ritual performed by Gordon Smith had been set to do its deed. The elements had fallen into place; the correct words had been spoken.
And the dark forces had answered.
And like all things, the ripple effect was in motion.
Flowing through the netherworld tide it reverberated, echoed. It sank into the ground, gathering strength through the ebbs and flows. It had been strong enough to reanimate and take possession of Neal Ashford when his lifeless, beaten body was buried in the consecrated ground and its strength was still present when Roger Gahan (who had lost his wallet two nights before being kidnapped by Scott Bradfield and his crew) was kidnapped, murdered and buried in the same spot. Building on its initial strength, and the new power it found through its simple task, that strength spread. It seeped through the ground, touching everything that had died and sunk into the earth. It moved slowly, creeping in a manner that was transparent to human perception.
A colony of ants killed by an invading colony was the first. Reanimated, the ants moved around sluggishly, as if confused in their destroyed labyrinths.
Farther in the woods the carcass of a mole, dead of a heart attack, was reanimated by the force’s power. It burrowed through the ground, still forever blind, searching for something that it could not comprehend.