Genesis of Evil (17 page)

The shrieking stopped.

The silence that followed was worse than the racket that went before. Claudette wriggled off of him and got to her knees.

“Are you all right, Chief?” she asked.

“Yeah. Where’s Maurice?”

“Right behind you,” Maurice answered. “We all got blown over together. Holy shit! I’ve never experienced anything even remotely like that. And we’ve been doing this for twelve years!”

Maurice suddenly remembered Archie. He got quickly to his feet and ran out the door, followed closely by Claudette. Gerhart was left sitting on the floor in the total silence. He stood and walked outside.

Archie, Maurice and Claudette stood around a baffled Andros. “It’s never done this before,” Andros said. “The engine just lugged way down and quit. Like that.” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

“It’s okay, Andros,” Maurice said. “If there’s any damage we’ll pay for it. I think it just overloaded itself momentarily.” He looked up at Gerhart. “I’ll be right back.”

Maurice jogged into the mall and was gone some four or five minutes. He returned, waving the meter in the air. “It worked,” he said. “The meter didn’t register anything this time.”

The group grinned at each other in the darkness while a puzzled Andros looked from one to the other and wondered what the hell was going on.

Hardly anybody was aware of what had taken place at the mall the night they zapped the demon. That was the way Archie referred to the event. Zapping the demon. The mall opened up the next morning as if nothing had happened and Trinidad carried on as usual. Maurice and the crew stayed for two days and monitored the mall for paranormal activity, but it was in vain. The headset stayed silent and the needles of the meters pointed endlessly to zero. At the end of the second day, Gerhart and the spookhunters stood in a group in the mall parking lot and smiled at each other.

“Maurice, I want to thank you and Claudette, and Archie of course, for the help,” Gerhart said. “I had no idea where to turn.”

“Actually, you should thank Francesca,” Maurice said. “If she hadn’t taken a beating at the mall you wouldn’t have got us at all. And that would have been a shame, in more ways than one.”

“Right,” Claudette said with a grin. “We would have missed our first genesis.”

Gerhart followed them to the police station where he stood and waved until both vehicles were out of sight. Then he heaved a sigh of relief, turned and walked into the building.

“In 1528, a large, red-haired man with one eye, named Panfilo de Narvaez, left Cuba with his band of armored warriors and landed on the shore of what would be called Tampa Bay. There was a Timucua Indian village nearby. The warriors marched into the village and claimed the land in the name of Spain. The Timucua Chief, Hirrihigua, wouldn’t buckle under to the demands of de Narvaez so the Spaniard slashed the Chief’s nose and had his men throw Hirrihigua’s mother into the middle of a pack of snarling dogs. They ate her alive. The swamps of Florida ultimately killed de Narvaez and his men but Hirrihigua didn’t forget the big, white, red-haired man and what he had done to Hirrihigua’s mother.

“When de Narvaez didn’t return to Cuba, a man named Juan Ortiz set out to search for him. He landed in the same place as de Narvaez and was captured by Hirrihigua. The Indians were fond of using on their enemies a form of torture they called
barbacoa
. This consisted of tying said enemy to a stout tree limb and turning him slowly over an open fire. This is what they set out to do with Ortiz. But Hirrihigua’s daughter, Ulele, pleaded for Ortiz’ life. Finally Hirrihigua relented and freed the Spaniard. Ortiz escaped, one would suppose medium well, but the word was absorbed into the language and ultimately found its way into English as—of course—barbecue.”

Gerhart and Roberta sat on her patio cooking hamburgers on a gas grille. Gerhart had just related the story of Ortiz and Hirrihigua and rewarded himself with a fresh bottle of beer. Roberta frowned at him, her eyes reduced to mere slits.

“Just how much of that did you invent?” she asked suspiciously.

Gerhart waved his beer in the air. “Madam! It’s all true. I swear. I read it someplace. I think. Besides, have you ever been lied to by a policeman?”

“One would certainly hope not, but who’s to say? It’s a good story in any case. How much longer should I torture your hamburger?”

The evening passed quickly. Much too quickly to suit Gerhart. They sat on the patio looking up at the stars that hung high above the gulf like tiny lights in a huge Christmas tree. Neither of them spoke for several minutes. It was a comfortable silence, he thought, not like some of those he had experienced with Virginia. Thinking of her brought Gerhart back to Trinidad with a jolt. He glanced at his watch, stood up and stretched. One of his knees popped.

“I’d better leave and let you get some rest,” he said, smiling down at Roberta.

She reached for her crutches where they leaned against the wall and got to her feet. “What’s your hurry? It’s early, at least for me. I’m nocturnal. Can’t get to sleep before 11 or 12.”

“You too? Virginia always said…” he trailed off, suddenly uncomfortable.

Roberta took his arm. “Come in the house for a minute. I promise not to hold you for more ransom than the force can afford.”

She led him into the kitchen, where she stood the crutches in a corner then turned and slipped her arms around his neck. Gerhart was caught completely off guard. He hesitated for a moment before giving in to the urge that engulfed him like a soft, warm blanket. A few minutes later she leaned back and stared into his eyes.

“I haven’t shown you the rest of the house,” she said quietly. “The bedrooms are back here.” She reached out for the crutches.

“You don’t need those,” Gerhart said as he scooped her into his arms.

Still later she said, “I won’t break, don’t worry. And I’m not a virgin. You can…oh, yesss. You can do that, too. Oh, sweetheart. There. Yes. I want to…oh my God.”

They lay in bed wrapped in each other’s arms. Slowly their breathing returned to normal. Gerhart rose up on an elbow and looked down at Roberta. Her eyes were closed and she smiled gently in the light that flowed through the window from the full moon. He took a deep breath.

“Are you sleeping?” he whispered.

She opened her eyes and looked up at him. “Who can sleep at a time like this?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t say this, but I want you to know what I’m feeling. I don’t want any misunderstandings between us. See, I…somehow I feel guilty abut this.”

“Because you just lost your wife.”

“I guess so. I suppose I shouldn’t, really. We hadn’t slept together for more than eight years, anyway.”

Roberta’s eyes opened wide. “Wow. No wonder you were like that. I’m surprised the bed held up. As long as we’re sharing secrets, it’s been a bit longer for me. Something like thirteen or fourteen years. And I can understand your guilt. You didn’t have any women in between?” She caught her lower lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry. That’s none of my business.”

“That’s all right. No, there wasn’t anyone else. I just sort of suppressed the urge.” He giggled and squeezed her hand. “What with all that celibacy it’s a wonder we didn’t kill each other.”

“The French call it the small death. If they’re right, I guess we did kill each other.”

Gerhart lay back on the bed once more and they listened to the night sounds outside the window. Then he stirred again. “I don’t want to pry, but…”

“After what just happened, you’re shy? Unbelievable. It’s a birth defect. My mother was Christian Scientist. They don’t believe in doctors but I’m not so narrow-minded. I’ve been to see a couple.”

“Can the problem be repaired?”

“Most of it. Maybe one of these days I’ll look into it. Fact is, I’m so used to the crutches I don’t even notice them anymore. But I’ve always had an itch for a pair of cowboy boots. They’re a little heavy to drag around this way.”

“That reminds me, who fixed up your car seat to swivel like that?”

“It came that way from the factory. I bought the car from my neighbor’s son. He came to visit her a while back and drove down in that old Plymouth. He was on his way to an antique car show someplace. The car was for sale and I went over to look at it. I liked it anyway, but when he showed me the swivel seats I was hooked. At least that made the purchase justifiable.”

“They’re pretty slick.” Gerhart turned his head and glanced at the clock on the nightstand. “I think I’d better be getting home.”

Roberta slid a hand across his stomach and gently pinched some skin. “Why?”

He thought it over. “Come to think of it, there’s no reason at all, is there?”

“Not that I can think of. Come here, you gorgeous man. I just thought of something I want to try.”

“Now? It’s after midnight. Oh. Maybe midnight isn’t late after all. Do that again.”

Roberta spread jelly on her toast and shoved the jar across the table to Gerhart. “Want some?”

“Yeah, thanks. More coffee?”

“Just a drop.”

“There’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”

“I thought we covered everything last night.”

“Well, this is really what I wanted to ask when you thought I was interested in your legs. Not that I find your legs uninteresting,” he hastened to add, “but this is something else.”

Roberta waved her toast at him. “Okay, shoot.”

“The first time I came over here, I heard the vacuum cleaner running. Since you hadn’t answered the door, I looked in the window to see if anybody was home. Know what I saw?”

Roberta frowned. “What?”

“The vacuum running around the room by itself while you worked at your computer.”

Roberta closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I think you’re mistaken.

“No, I’m not,” Gerhart said, smiling gently. “Look at me. I’m just curious, that’s all.”

Roberta opened her eyes and stared deep into his for the second time in twelve hours. “Okay, I believe you, but you may not believe me. I’ll try to explain. Are you familiar with the term telekinesis?”

Roberta had never tried to explain her talent to anyone else. In fact, nobody had ever caught her using it. She was always careful not to move anything when it would create the least bit of suspicion, but she had inadvertently slipped up with Gerhart so there was nothing to do but get it over with. She had trouble getting started, but when it became clear that Gerhart was serious about understanding, the whole story rolled out before she could think about it. When she finished, he sat there for a moment nodding his head slowly. Then he smiled, reached across the table and took her hand.
 

“That’s absolutely fantastic,” he said. “It’s a wonderful gift, but I can understand why you would be afraid to get caught using it. They burned people with that sort of talent in Salem, Massachusetts. I’m not sure things would be a lot different today.”

“That’s what worries me,” she said. Then she took a deep breath. “But now it’s your turn.”

“My turn? For what?”

“I think the reason you don’t have trouble believing in my little power is because you’ve run into something at the mall that also defies the laws of nature as we know them. That’s what those strangers with the hearse and the motor home were doing—helping you with the problem. But you’ve managed to keep it all quiet.”

Gerhart shrugged, squeezed her hand and grinned a little. “It isn’t a nice story like yours, but I can hardly say no under the circumstances.” He cleared his throat. “It started even before the mall was finished. Maybe I’d better have some more of that coffee.”

Chapter Sixteen

November 13, 2004

It was almost three weeks since the spookhunters had zapped the demon. Gerhart had settled back into the routine that prevailed before the problems at the mall started. He had come to grips with the loss of Virginia, and he and Roberta were developing a hopeful, if hesitant, relationship. Trinidad was back to normal.

Or so it seemed.

It was twelve minutes after noon on a sweltering Thursday. The food court at the mall was filled to the edges with shoppers and sales personnel on their lunch break. The line in front of the Taco Loco was, as one of the customers put it, longer than the national debt laid end to end with dollar bills.

Carl Ed Chamnis, nicknamed Beano for his uncanny ability to fart at will, was next in line to be served. He had left home at 5:00 in the morning and spent the next four hours cutting pulpwood and loading it onto his twenty-three-year-old GMC truck. At 9:20 he pulled onto the highway and drove all of a quarter mile when the engine developed a case of hiccups, then stopped running altogether. Beano managed to coast the top-heavy rig to the side of the road and spent the next ten minutes diagnosing a dead fuel pump. He hitched a ride into Trinidad, bought a pump at Zimmer’s Auto Parts with his last twenty dollar bill, hitched back and changed the pump out. By the time he got the GMC running again, it was 11:30. Beano was now tired, frustrated, almost broke and certain he would starve to death before another five minutes passed. He had eaten nothing since 4:30 in the morning. The sight of a stray dog trotting along the road reminded him of a cartoon he had seen once depicting two vultures sitting on a fence. One had turned to the other and said, “Patience, hell. I’m going out and kill something.” Then Beano glanced up and saw the mall on his left. He swung the old truck into the parking lot, stopped and counted the money left in his wallet. It amounted to something less than five dollars.