The Frighteners (12 page)

Frank rushed over to Cyrus, who was clutching his chest. “Cyrus?” he asked, lifting the emanation’s arm to reveal a nasty gash.

“Some badass brother messed me up real bad, Frank,” Cyrus said.

Bannister looked around warily, not wanting to draw attention to himself. He gestured to the entrance to the mock-up Egyptian tomb. “Let’s take Cyrus in there,” he said to Stuart.

Stuart dragged Cyrus into the tomb while Frank looked around, making sure no one was watching him. When he was sure that all living eyes were elsewhere, he ducked into the tomb. In the cool darkness of the reproduced burial chamber, he bent over Cyrus and began to rip his disco jacket into strips that could be used as bandages.

“What happened?” he asked.

“I never seen anything like it before,” Cyrus said. “It was a big blue-black thing wearing a hood.”

“But it’s not an emanation,” Stuart exclaimed. “It’s some sort of spirit . . . a dark spirit.”

“Did you see its face?” Frank asked.

“I saw two slitty yellow eyes, like a snake,” Cyrus replied, looking down at the damage. “Man, look at what that mean mother did to me!”

Stuart said, “It’s a psycho, Frank, a bloody psycho. It could kill us all.”

“Who is it, Frank?” Cyrus asked.

“It’s the Reaper, son,” the Judge answered. He had appeared in the entrance to the burial chamber, a doom-laden expression on his face. Frank stared at him.

“The Reaper? As in the Grim Reaper?”

“But . . . but he’s a mythical figure,” Stuart said, terrified, “a pseudo-religious icon from the twelfth century.”

“Save your pea-brained prattle for the classroom, boy,” the Judge said. “That was the Soul Collector we saw before. He’s been taking people out since time began. He’s goin’ about his dark business here in Fairwater, and there ain’t nothin’ no one can do to stop him. When your number’s up, that’s it.”

“Man, he was so strong,” Cyrus said.

“Cyrus took him on,” Stuart said.

“I was wondering how you got this little scratch.” Frank indicated the wound to his friend’s middle.

“I tackled the cat and sent him flying across the floor. But he was back on his feet in a second and whipped out this scythe . . .”

“Scythe?”

“Yeah, the thing the Grim Reaper carries in all those old lithographs,” Stuart replied.

“And then he cut me,” Cyrus said. “You should have caught this guy’s act.”

“I saw him a little while ago,” Frank said, wrapping bits of cloth around Cyrus’s middle to help hold in the ectoplasm.

“The Reaper? Where?” Stuart asked.

“At Bellisimo’s. He attacked a man in the men’s room.”

“What do you mean ‘attacked’?” Cyrus asked.

“He stuck his fist in the guy’s chest, whispered, ‘Don’t fear the Reaper,’ and squeezed the life out of the poor guy,” Frank replied.

“That’s what happened here,” Stuart said. “This time the victim was that Egyptologist you saw lying on the floor.”

“Did you see her take the corridor, man?” Cyrus asked. “That gives me a thrill each time I see it. I kinda wonder if that’s what I shouldn’t have done.”

“The guy in the restaurant did, too,” Frank said.

“So now we know who’s responsible for all these so-called unexplained killings around town,” the Judge added.

“Yeah,” Cyrus said to Frank, “the ones that have been making you so rich.”

“So that’s the bulge I saw in my wallet this morning,” Bannister said, finishing the bandaging and pulling the remains of Cyrus’s jacket over his handiwork.

“Well, we
have
been leaving your business cards at all the funerals,” Stuart said.

“The way my luck has been running, they’ll blame me.” Frank stood and looked around nervously.

Bellisimo’s was largely empty. The restaurant had been cleared of patrons, with the exception of those the police wanted to interview. Magda Ravanski was being questioned by a deputy sheriff while Steve Bayliss stood nearby, gaping at the body being wheeled out in a black bag. The morgue attendants stopped halfway across the room to let Sheriff Perry sign a release form, and then continued out of the restaurant to the waiting coroner’s wagon.

“Who is this guy again?” Perry asked Tom Passell, one of his deputies.

“Barry Thompson,” Passell reported, reading from his clipboard. “He was the new salesman at Fairwater Ford; just moved up from Boston a few months ago.”

“Never met him. What killed the guy?”

“Doc says it looks like another heart attack, but he ain’t confirming nothing till after the autopsy.”

“Damn,” Perry swore.

“The waiter says that some guy came outta the john about five minutes before the body was found,” Passell continued.

“Who was that?”

“Frank Bannister.”

“I might have known.” Perry shook his head.

“He was white as a sheet and shaking,” Passell said. “The waiter assumed he’d been sick. You remember, they had that problem with the clams last year?”

“Do I remember?” Perry asked, unconsciously clutching his stomach.

“Well, the waiter thought it was another case of food poisoning.”

“What did Frank do next?”

“He didn’t hang around long. He was here having dinner with Ray Lynskey’s widow.”

“Say again?” Perry asked, his eyes widening.

“You got it, Sheriff,” Passell said. “Bannister was having a romantic dinner with Lucy Lynskey.”

“You know,” Perry said reflectively, “I ain’t an old man, but I can remember a time when folks waited a year after losing a spouse before looking for a new one.”

Passell nodded.

“Now, if they wait five minutes it’s like they’re becoming old maids or something.”

“We’re holding her for questioning,” Passell said.

“Where’d Frank go?”

“Just before the body was found in the bathroom, he took off like a shot and left her here.”

“Where is she?”

“Over in the corner.” The deputy tilted his head in the direction of the corner table. Perry looked at Lucy, who was sitting alone, looking nervous and confused.

“What’s going on in my town?” Perry asked, but before Passell could attempt an answer, Fred Gilman, another deputy, rushed in from the street.

“What’s up?”

“There’s been another death,” he said excitedly.

“Just like this one?” Perry asked.

“Could be its twin.”

“Where?”

“At the museum. It was a young woman, someone who had something to do with the new show that opened tonight.”

“Show? Oh yeah, ancient Egypt. Did Amos Osborne ever get a permit to string that banner across the road?”

“I’ll check in the morning, boss,” Gilman said. “The victim has been taken to the morgue.”

“Did anybody see what happened?” Perry asked.

“There were a lot of witnesses, including all the VIPs in town—excepting you, of course, and you were working. One of them was Frank Bannister.”

“He was there, too? How long ago did this ‘heart attack’ take place?”

“About half an hour ago?”

“And this one here?”

“About an hour ago,” Passell replied.

“Our boy Frank Bannister is getting around tonight,” Perry said. “Personally, I like the man and find him harmless. But Joel Rifkin didn’t attract much attention either—that was, until the cops pulled him over and he had his seventeenth victim in the back of his truck. Go find Bannister and bring him in.”

Frank was hurrying down the street toward the restaurant, hoping to get to Lucy and explain—if he could—before she ran off and never talked to him again. When he saw that the parking lot was full of police cars and ambulances, he hesitated for a moment, then plunged on ahead.

He was just about to cross from the sidewalk to the parking lot when he saw a couple walking along in the shadows on the edge of the lot, toward him.

“Bannister!” the woman’s voice called.

Frank found himself confronted with Magda Ravanski and Steve Bayliss. She sounded drunker than she’d seemed before, and Bayliss had been recruited to help hold her up. He didn’t seem too happy about it.

Bannister wasn’t exactly thrilled at the prospect of another encounter with her. But at least with the long and dark shadows falling across her face, he didn’t have to look at the woman.

“What do you want?” Bannister asked.

“Where did you run off to, another haunting?”

“Is Lucy still inside?” he asked, deciding not to be provoked by her.

“Oh, is it ‘Lucy’ now? I didn’t realize that con men got on a first-name basis with their victims so quickly.”

“Maybe we should be going,” Bayliss said nervously, wanting to defuse the situation.

“I’m not done with this leech,” Magda said.

“Is she in the restaurant or not?” Bannister asked.

“She’s there, Bannister, being questioned by the police.”

“What do they want to talk to Lucy for?” he asked, surprised.

She laughed. It was a leering sort of laugh. “I think that associating with you would be enough to get someone questioned by the police.”

Bannister frowned. There was no talking to this woman. He started toward the restaurant door.

“The police are looking for you,” she said then.

He spun around. She had stepped out of the shadows and into the light from the street lamps, and to Bannister’s shock the number forty glowed brightly on her forehead.

“Oh, Jesus,” he said softly.

She laughed. “Yes, I’d be worried, too.”

“You’re next,” he said, more to himself than to her.

“Are you threatening me?” she spat.

Confused, Bannister said “No, I . . .”

“Deputy!” she yelled.

Frank turned back toward the restaurant and saw two deputies walking out the door. She yelled to them, “It’s Bannister! He’s here!”

He gaped at them, rising his hands as they drew their guns.

“On the ground, Bannister . . . now!”

Like most men, Frank had never had guns aimed at him before, at least not real ones. The Judge’s ghostly bullets never seemed to matter much. The deputies were walking toward him, and Bannister was about to drop down onto the sidewalk. Then the men stepped over a chain, used to seal off the parking lot during off hours. It was lying on the asphalt so the official vehicles could get in and out. Suddenly the chain whipped up into the air, tripping both deputies. They tumbled to the ground.

“What the hell?” Magda swore as Bannister spotted Cyrus and Stuart pulling on opposite ends of the chain.

“Get outta here, man,” Cyrus yelled. “Go on, split!”

Frank hesitated for a moment, then raced toward the back of the parking lot.

“No!” Magda yelled. “He’s getting away!”

The two surprised lawmen scrambled to their feet and tried to aim their guns. But Cyrus and Stuart whipped the chain, knocking the weapons away.

Bannister dashed around the parked police cars and ambulances, then yanked open the door to his Ford and slid behind the wheel. Within seconds, he had the engine turning over.

The deputies were looking for their guns when they saw Frank’s car racing across the lot. They jumped to the side as it skidded onto the street, the chain now suddenly laying back on the pavement.

Frank turned into the street and raced away from Bellisimo’s as fast as he could, the old engine roaring and the largely bald tires squealing. Then the headlights picked out the ghostly figure of the Judge, staggering down the middle of the road toward the car.

“Frank!” he yelled, raising a hand.

Instinctively, Bannister slammed on the brakes and braced himself for the impact. The front of his car passed through the Judge, but there was a thud as the old emanation was collected by the passenger’s seat, rather like a ratty old moth being scooped up by a butterfly net.

The Judge found himself kneeling backward, arms wrapped around the back of the seat, hanging on . . . well, for dear life.

“Faster, Frank,” he sputtered. “There’s a posse comin’ up our ass.”

Bannister slammed his foot down on the accelerator and the car shot forward with another wail of burning rubber. Back in the parking lot, policemen were packing into two squad cars and revving up their engines. As the first police car began to move forward, Cyrus bounded across the parking lot and thrust his head and shoulders through the hood. He quickly reached out and yanked the wires off the spark plugs.

The deputies inside looked at one another and at the dashboard as their brand-new police car’s engine died.

Stuart saw what Cyrus had done and tried to do the same thing to the other car. But he was a computer expert, not a car expert. He thrust himself under the hood and looked around in total confusion. He had never really paid any attention to what went on beneath the hood of a car.

“What do I do?” he asked himself, desperate, as the car began to move, the engine roaring.

Then his arm was suddenly caught up in the blades of the cooling fan and he was sucked into the radiator! The radiator cap popped off and his distorted head squeezed out through the tiny hole. Pressurized steam blasted out around his neck and ears. But the sound of the steam was drowned out by the sound of his panicked screams.

The two policemen inside the car had just gotten over their shock at their colleagues’ car dying when steam began pouring out from under the hood of their own.

“Shit,” one of them said.

Stuart suddenly disappeared back into the engine. There was a loud clanging and banging and then a huge spitting sound as he was shot out the exhaust pipe like a bullet. He tumbled along the road before rolling back into his usual form and sitting up, his head spinning dizzily.

“Goddammit,” the cop driving car swore, slamming his fist against the steering wheel. Frank’s car was just a distant memory, its headlights fading far down the deserted street.

As the world stopped rotating around Stuart, he saw Cyrus walking up, looking like the cat that just ate the canary. “Way to go, bro’,” he said happily, giving Stuart a hand up.

“Did Frank get away?”

“Yeah, and he took the ancient cowboy with him. Swooped him up and off they rode into the night.”

“I don’t know what I did inside that engine,” Stuart said as the two emanations turned to admire their handiwork. The pair of stricken police cars sat alongside one another in the parking lot. “But it was one hell of a trip.”