Yeah, Zack thought. Especially for a dead person.
48
After summoning Murphy, Butler, and several other deceased criminal masterminds, Grimes and the Tunisians had taken a four-hour break from conjuring demons, vacating the stage just before the Sunday-afternoon performance of Bats in Her Belfry.
Immediately after the matinee, however, when the audience was gone, the lobby was empty, and the doors were once again barred, Reginald Grimes returned to center stage to form a necromancy circle with the three other men.
“Who’s next?” he asked Hakeem without much enthusiasm.
“Lilly Pruett.”
The name sounded familiar. A distant childhood memory. Something to do with girls skipping rope.
His mind was wandering. Grimes was exhausted. Dead tired. He couldn’t remember half of the names of the spirits he had summoned up from the underworld.
“She was originally summoned by the professor,” Hakeem explained. “Now she must answer to you!”
“How much more of this must I endure before you unlock the trunk’s final compartment?”
Hakeem unfurled a long scroll filled with names. “Fortunately, a few of the spirits your grandfather was familiar with still reside here in the theater. William Bampfield …”
“Bampfield? Who’s he?”
“An early settler. A Pilgrim, I believe you call them. He stole his neighbor’s cattle, killed his wife and two daughters. Claimed the devil told him to do it. Went to the gallows.”
“Wonderful,” Grimes said sarcastically. “And what, pray tell, do I want with him?”
“Mr. Bampfield should prove most eager to steal and kill again.”
“So?”
“He’d be delighted to do so for you. To kill, to rob, to pillage, plunder, pilfer, ransack, and loot. So would they all. These evil spirits will do anything you ask of them. They simply need a good director to tell them where to go and what to do.”
“Wait a minute,” said Grimes. “You’re telling me these ghosts can actually rob banks, steal diamonds, forge checks, embezzle funds, make me rich beyond my wildest dreams and kill anyone who tries to stop us?”
“Yes. Not now. But soon.”
“Bah! You keep saying that. ‘Soon! Soon!’ How soon?”
“Tomorrow. When the moon is full. When the sacred ceremony is complete.”
“What ceremony?”
“The one you will perform with the two children!”
“Really? And, tell me, Hakeem: What’s in all this for you?”
Hakeem smiled. “Enough gold and treasure to restore Carthage to its full and rightful glory! It is all we brothers of Hannibal have ever dreamed of for over two thousand years! You, oh high priest of Ba’al, you shall make our dreams at long last come true!”
49
Zack had taken Zipper out for a walk right before he and Judy had called it a night and gone to bed—Judy to her room, Zack and Zipper to his.
Now Zipper was nudging Zack with his snout.
Apparently, the dog needed to go out again.
“Mmmfff.” Zack buried his head under his pillow.
Zipper kept nuzzling, burrowing into the blankets, and prying the pillow away from Zack’s face so he could lick it.
“What time is it?” Zack mumbled.
Rubbing his eyes and sitting up, Zack found his watch on the bedside table.
3:55 a.m.
Zipper nose-nudged him, poked him in the ribs.
“Okay, Zip. I get it.”
Too bad they weren’t at home, where Zack could just open the back door and let Zip out into the yard to do his business. Here in Chatham, if Zipper had to take another pee, Zack had to walk him down five floors to the lobby.
Zack put on his glasses. Slipped on his bathrobe and sneakers. He didn’t bother tying up the laces.
“Come on, Zip.” Yawning, he snapped the leash onto the dog’s collar.
They headed out the door, moved down the hallway past Judy’s room. Zack shuffled while Zipper padded. They made their way to the elevator. Zack pressed the call button, heard its motor whir.
“At least the elevator’s running,” Zack said through another jaw-stretcher of a yawn.
Zipper wagged his tail and smiled up at him: a dog’s way of saying “sorry to wake you up, pal” and “thanks for taking me out.”
“No problem-o,” said Zack, bending down to scratch Zipper behind the ears. “Just hold it until we get outside, okay?” Zack definitely did not want to deal with any grief from that scraggly old janitor if Zipper had an accident.
The elevator squealed to a stop. Zack slid open the accordion cage door.
Someone was inside. Weeping.
“Are you a demon?” she asked.
50
The Native. American girl was standing inside the elevator.
She was still sobbing.
“The corn is ours!” she blubbered. “How can we steal what is ours?”
Suddenly, Zack heard a tremendous whoosh.
Someone else shot up the elevator shaft: Streaming through the floor of the car was a blast of dust that materialized into a person who clutched a sparkling necklace in one hand and brandished a bloody meat cleaver in the other.
“Silence, little girl, or I promise: I shall give you something to cry about!”
The girl wailed louder.
“Silence, I said!”
The new ghost was dressed in a black top hat and a Dracula-style cape. Blood was spattered all over his white shirt and waistcoat. Blood was caked on the blade of his cleaver.
Zipper whimpered.
Zack wished he had taken the time to tie his shoelaces; it would’ve made running away easier.
“My time is nearly up!” Cleaver Man cried. “But I shall return! Oh, yes—I shall return!” He disappeared.
The girl stopped crying.
Zack heard that trapdoor sound again.
The Indian girl fell halfway through the solid floor, then stopped with a jerk. Her head snapped sideways. She gacked and a bloated black tongue popped out of her mouth.
“Come on, Zip!”
Zack scooped up his dog and bolted down the hall to the stairwell.
Zipper still had to pee.
That meant Zack still had to face whoever or whatever else might be lurking in the shadows on the five flights of steps they would need to descend before they reached the lobby.
He just hoped whomever they bumped into wouldn’t be as scary as the girl swinging from an invisible noose back in the elevator.
Or the Jack the Ripper look-alike who popped in with his jewelry and bloody butcher blade.
51
Zack was whistling.
He figured that if it worked when walking past graveyards, it might work in haunted stairwells, too.
“Five more floors to go,” he whispered tensely to Zipper.
The stairwell was windowless and nearly dark, illuminated only by the soft red glow of Exit signs on every landing. Zack kept one hand on the cold handrail, used it to feel his way down the steps; his other arm was wrapped snugly around Zipper.
He heard a tick-tick-tick.
Something was clicking. He stopped. The sound stopped, too.
Juggler Girl, he thought. Plastic balls!
Zipper squirmed in his arms. Zack could see that pained sorry-but-I-really-have-to-pee look in his eyes.
“Okay. Hang on.”
He headed down the steps again. Faster.
The tick-tick-tick started up again. Faster. Zack figured the girl was spinning her balls like crazy, getting warmed up to attack.
He rounded the third-floor landing.
Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.
What if she was juggling knives with plastic handles? Magician’s knives!
Tick-tick-tick.