Despite not having met this man before, Naomi felt an instant kinship with him. She had the impression he was intelligent and often had a hard time with readers who reacted viscerally to the themes of his suspense novels. It was obvious his horror novels weren’t taken as seriously by his hardcore readership. “I’ll get straight to the point Mr. Sawyer.”
“Call me Bill.”
From the living room, Jeff was watching the TV. “Oh my God,” she heard him mutter. “Jesus, hon, you should see this — “
“Hold on,” Naomi said to Jeff. She knew what was happening without needing to see the news. The spell was getting stronger, raising the dead everywhere and powering them, gaining strength as it emanated onward. She turned and headed into the kitchen, talking to William Sawyer who, as far as she knew, was hundreds, if not thousands of miles away. “A classmate of Tim’s borrowed his copy of Back From the Dead. He overheard Tim talking about the book to a group of his friends and was interested in the book for one reason. He wanted the formula to perform a spell that is depicted somewhere in the narrative. I’m not familiar with the book Mr. Sawyer, so please forgive my ignorance of the novel’s plot — “
“That’s okay,” William Sawyer said.
Naomi gave William Sawyer an abbreviated version of what happened. She heard him draw in a breath of surprise. Several times he said, “I can’t believe it.” When she got to the part about Scott Bradfield’s wilding spree and the use of the spell to reanimate the bodies of their murder victims for further abuse, William sounded disturbed, to say the least. He spoke in a hushed voice, as if he were holding his breath. “I don’t know what’s more disturbing. The supernatural elements I’ve never believed in, or what you said about this kid and his friends kidnapping people, taking them to his rich parents’ guesthouse and torturing them. Jesus!”
“So what you described in your book is fictitious?” Naomi asked.
“The ritual? Elements of the ritual are taken from non-fiction accounts.”
“So they’re real?”
William let out a small sigh. “Ms. Gaines…you’ve got to understand…what happens in Back From the Dead is fantasy. I’m still trying to wrap my head around the concept that somebody out there took a piece of fiction as…the real thing.”
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in this life, Mr. Sawyer, it’s that most people are dumber than stumps. Especially the ones I’m dealing with now where it concerns my son.”
“I’m an Agnostic, Ms. Gaines. I approached the supernatural elements of Back From the Dead from a very pragmatic, anthropological view.”
“But the ritual itself is real?”
“Only elements are.”
“Which elements?”
“There’s a scene in the book where the antagonist performs a ritual in the woods,” William Sawyer explained. “What I describe him doing, the animal sacrifice he makes, the occult items used, the time of year, it’s all based on variations of different occult rituals. A dash of Macumba, a little bit of Santeria, some Wiccan stuff. I threw in elements of pseudo-Satanic stuff for dramatic effect and to give it a more sinister edge. Other elements were inspired by the writings of Justin Grave, a pulp horror writer from the 1930’s who wrote a handful of stories and a novel utilizing the demon Hanbi. Other stuff I made up.”
“Such as utilizing the bones of a human being?” Naomi asked.
There was a short pause. “Did the boy who performed the ritual…use human bones?”
“He dug up a grave to get human bones for the ritual, Mr. Sawyer.”
The silence on the line spoke volumes. Naomi wondered how Agnostic William Sawyer really was. She was just about to ask him when he cut in. “This is just impossible. I mean…the ingredients are real enough…the positioning of the stars is all based on known astrological charts, but the spell itself…the dialogue and what’s said. I made that all up.”
“You made it up?”
“Yeah. Do you know anything about the boy who performed the spell?”
“He’s a trouble-maker.”
“Is he Catholic?”
“Catholic?”
“A believer. A Christian, Jew, or even Muslim?”
Naomi shrugged. “I’m pretty sure he’s Christian in name only.”
“You said he believed my book was non-fiction?”
“That’s what Tim said. It didn’t matter how many times Tim corrected Gordon and told him it was fiction, it didn’t work. Gordon was convinced the spell in the book was real.”
“Belief can be strong.” Naomi heard William rummaging around in the background. “Hold on a minute, Ms. Gaines.”
Naomi drifted into the living room to see what was going on. Jeff was sitting on the sofa intently watching the news. He turned to her. “It’s really happening,” he said. For the first time in the twenty years she and Jeff had been married, he looked deathly afraid. “It’s like…” He was so stunned he couldn’t finish his sentence.
William Sawyer came back on the line. “Are you there, Ms. Gaines?”
“Yeah.”
“When did all this happen?” William’s voice had taken on a new tone. It sounded grave.
Naomi backtracked in her mind. “Three weeks ago. Maybe less.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
Naomi sighed and tried to do better. How long had Tim been out of school? A week? That would place things at around June 5. Gordon had come to Tim about a week before that to borrow the book, probably May 24. “Gordon borrowed Tim’s copy of Back From the Dead the week of May 24th. I’d say it was May 27th when the police showed up here to accuse Tim of robbing that grave.”
“They showed up the afternoon of the 27th?”
“Yes.”
“So the grave was robbed the night before?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause, followed by an audible whisper. “My God!”
“What?” The tone of William’s voice sent shards of ice down Naomi’s spine.
“I’m consulting a book, Ms. Gaines,” William Sawyer said. His voice maintained that grave tone. “It’s…a rather old volume and technically it’s a piece of fiction, but it’s based on a very old legend. It contains many recipes for magical formulae. Anyway, I remember a reference to the month before the Summer Solstice, so I did some research. In four years the stars will be in a perfect alignment on the night of the Summer Solstice, but listen to this…” She heard the whispering of pages and then he continued. “The stars align to their position six years before this is to happen, and in yearly increments they continually shift until the night of the Solstice, when they’re in the correct position. However, in the years prior, if certain rituals are conducted at midnight on May 26th or 27th, depending on the alignment of the stars, it’s enough to throw the gates open and call to certain dark gods.”