The Stuffing of Nightmares (The Mysteries of Bell & Whitehouse Book 7) (13 page)

T
ony stared at the carnage
. He didn’t like what he saw, especially since he felt he was partly to blame for the disaster that had befallen his new master.

Reece lay on a slab in the center of the lab, motionless, as did Alice and her two friends. And then there were a bunch of others, most notable amongst them the large chief of police he’d been sent to fetch.

Reece and his friends had been so nice to him, comforting him with word and gesture when he was still reeling with the shock of having been killed and stuffed by the woman whom he thought had loved him like a friend.

He glanced at the little mutt seated beside him. Spot was the mutt’s name, and he liked him. He had a keen expression on his furry face that told him there was more to this mutt than met the eye. He might be a happy yapper, but he had a good set of brains on him.

“We need to save them,” Spot said.

“Save them? What do you mean, save them?”

He was feeling quite lost. How in heaven’s name could a ghost pony and a ghost dog save a bunch of humans? Not that he didn’t want to. They were about to be stuffed, and he knew from experience that was not a good thing.

“I don’t know,” Spot continued, “but we can’t just sit here and watch them get stuffed. We owe it to them to do something, don’t you think?”

“Who do you belong to?” he asked out of curiosity.

“I used to belong to Ricky’s dad, but then I died and got passed to Ricky.”

The pony nodded. That sounded about right. You died and then you got handed to someone else. “I died and was passed on to Reece,” he explained.

“I know. I was there when they brought you in, remember?”

“Oh, right,” he said. The last couple of hours had been a blur. So much had happened that he had a hard time keeping up.

“So how do you want to do this?” Spot wanted to know.

“We’re ghosts,” Tony pointed out. “There isn’t much we can do.”

“Oh, there’s plenty.”

“Like what? I can’t even touch anything. I grab right through it.”

“Just follow my lead,” Spot said. He kicked a power plug that was lying on the floor. It skittered away and hit the wall with a sharp crack. The scientist, that Cieslok guy, looked up in surprise. The man was preparing a set of syringes. Probably stuff he was going to pump into his victims. Eight bodies to be stuffed required a great deal of preparation, apparently, and he was busily setting everything up.

“How did you do that?” Tony asked, amazed.

“Us ghosts can move things in the real world if we just focus hard enough,” Spot explained. “Why do you think I can sit on Ricky’s lap? Or he can cradle me in his arms?” At these words, he stopped talking for a moment and looked at his master, a sadness in his eyes that was palpable.

“You mean that if I master this trick, I can nuzzle Reece’s palm?” He loved nuzzling people’s palms. It made him feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

“Sure you can. You just have to do what I do. First, think very hard about the object you want to control. Like this dish full of green pellets for instance.” The dish was placed on a table and looked pretty funky.

Tony watched the dish intently. “Uh-huh,” he said.

“Now imagine that you can move it with your mind. You don’t have a body anymore, remember, only a pack of ectoplasmic energy. But that’s enough to put things in motion and cause an effect in the real world.”

“Uh-huh,” repeated Tony dubiously. He hadn’t understood a single word Spot said, only that he could move this dish if he wanted to. So he pushed his shoulder against the table and watched it move slightly as he did so. “Hey!” he yelled, brightening. “Did you see that?”

“Way to go!” the pup cried. “Now give it all you got, Tony. Knock over that dish!”

Tony gave the table another good shove. The dish was catapulted from its surface, the gelatinous pellets all dropping to the cement floor. Some of them rolled away, but some dissolved on impact, releasing some sort of greenish smoke.

“Hey, this is some pretty neat stuff!” Tony cried as he watched the vapor rise up.

“Now watch what happens next,” Spot said, indicating Anselm Cieslok. “I’ll bet this stuff will knock him right out. Probably some sleeping gas. Like they used on Ricky.”

The scientist, who’d looked up when the dish hit the floor with a clanking sound, came hurrying over, then gave a startled cry when the toxic fumes hit his nostrils. The next moment, instead of keeling over, however, he simply started sweeping the green goo onto a dustbin and dumping it in the trash. Then he started picking up the pellets that had gotten away, chasing them all over the lab. The man sure liked to run a clean ship, Tony thought.

Next to him, Spot heaved a disappointed groan, though the pony failed to see why. The experiment had been a great success as far as he was concerned: he’d managed to move stuff in the real world!

The exercise had given him quite an appetite, though, which was, of course, impossible, as he was dead, and dead animals don’t eat. At least he didn’t think so. He searched around. If only he could find a carrot to nibble on, that would be wonderful. Just the sensation of a nice, juicy carrot between his teeth… And as he thought about chewing down on a carrot, he was idly drifting about the room and sidled up to Reece. He remembered how he’d fed him those great little sugar cubes. Mh… Sugar cubes…

And since there weren’t any of those around, he decided to chew on the ropes tying Reece to the operating table instead. They were orange and full of fiber, just like carrots. And he’d finished chewing through one set and halfway through the next, when Spot saw what he was doing.

“Great going, buddy!” the doggie cried out. “Keep up the good work!”

“Huh?” he said, looking down at the excitable pup. Then he shrugged. “Oh, you mean the rope. Yeah, I know they’re not carrots, but they will tide me over until I can get to the real stuff.”

He could feel the rope against his tongue, so he was making great progress. Soon he’d be able to taste them, too!

Since he’d now chewed through all the ropes, he decided to move to licking Reece’s face. Maybe he still had a sugar cube tucked away somewhere? It was hard to see where, as he was only dressed in navy blue swimming trunks, but humans tended to surprise him from time to time.

After licking Reece’s face for a while, he started shoving him with his nose. “Hey, Reece,” he breathed. “Reece? Reece? Reece? Reece? Reece?”

Finally, the actor opened his eyes and stared at him stupidly.

“Hey, Reece,” he said. “Do you have a sugar cube for me?”

Reece blinked, and repeated the question. “A sugar cube?”

“Or a carrot. A carrot will do just fine. I think I’m ready for them now.”

Reece didn’t respond. He simply sat up and swung his feet to the floor. Then he shook his head, as if clearing his mind, picked up a two-by-four that was lying on the floor, and slapped it against the palm of his other hand.

Tony eyed this with interest. It wasn’t a carrot, per se, but it was something. And he was about to give the thing a tentative nibble when Reece tiptoed up to the scientist who stood bent over a worktable, counting pellets, and crashed the two-by-four on the back of the man’s head.

He went down without uttering a single sound.

Reece nodded contentedly. “That will teach you to try and stuff Chuck MacLachlan,” he grunted.

Tony didn’t understand what was going on, exactly, but he was happy to see Reece up and about again. And knocking out that scientist guy was probably not such a bad idea, as he was the one who was going to stuff Reece and his friends. If only he could knock out the person who’d stuffed him, life would be grand. But since that wasn’t in the cards, he started nibbling on the ropes tying up Alice, instead. Reece seemed to like that idea, for he started removing the restraints on the other prisoners.

And they’d just freed the lot, and they were all groggily sitting up, rubbing their heads as if they were in pain, when a chubby woman entered the basement, along with a tall and burly man. Tony wondered if they had any carrots to spare, so he galloped over and gave the woman a friendly nudge. She went down hard, and as she did got tangled up with her associate.

They’d both been carrying guns, and they clattered to the floor. The noise attracted Reece’s attention, who jogged over and dove on top of the chubby lady, pinning her to the floor, while simultaneously tackling the burly guy who was trying to get up. It was a testament to Reece’s resolve that he easily held them both in a chokehold.

Tony watched it with a kindly eye and saw that the ropes he’d removed from Reece’s friends were now being used to tie up these two characters.

Well, it probably served them right. If they couldn’t even bother to bring him any carrots, they deserved everything they got.

“Great work, Tony,” Spot gushed, yapping fervently.

“I didn’t do a thing,” he said, surprised.

“You did plenty. I’m sure we’re going to be best buds,” said Spot, holding up his paw.

Tony stared at it, not comprehending.

“Lay it on me, bud,” said Spot.

Tony shook his head. What did that even mean?

“Give me five, brother!”

“Five what?”

“Just hold up your hoof, will you? That’s it.”

Spot slapped his paw against his hoof, and Tony watched him curiously. This Spot sure was a strange one. But he wasn’t a bad sort. And he would probably get used to him as time went by. “Now can we get out of here?”

He was starving—perhaps not starving for food, but definitely for some air and sunshine. He’d seen enough basements for a while.

F
elicity paced
the floor around the incapacitated dumpy cook and her unlikable pal. Officers Wilson and Rhythm had searched the manor and had also collared Bowen Cieslok, who now sat handcuffed to a chair, gazing at the proceedings with confusion etched on his lined face. His son was still out for the count, Reece having put quite some vim and vigor into his swing. So the gang was all here, except for Fabiola, who was nowhere to be found.

“Where is she?” Felicity demanded from Rae. “Where’s Fabiola?”

“Perhaps you better let me do the questioning,” Chief Whitehouse interrupted. “After all, I am the police officer on the scene.”

He didn’t condone civilians overstepping their boundaries, Felicity knew from experience. She eyed the police chief narrowly. “Excuse me, Chief, but you didn’t seem too concerned when we filed a missing person report for Reece.”

“I was knocked out!” he cried out. “Don’t you think I believe you now?”

“You should take a look in the next room, Dad,” Alice said. “It’s full of people they murdered and stuffed.”

Chief Whitehouse shook his grizzled head. “That’s pretty sick.”

“Watch with the name calling,” Rae grumbled.

“No lip from you, lady. You’re just a common criminal,” said the chief.

“We’re not criminals,” her accomplice piped up. It was the first time Felicity had heard him speak. “We’re simply loyal servants to Mr. Cieslok.”

“Loyal servants my butt,” Felicity said nastily. “You tried to kill us.”

“This is all so horrible,” Mabel said, shaking her head.

“I think we should call for backup, sir,” Office Rhythm ventured. “There may be a whole bunch of people involved in this murder plot.”

“I think there’s just three,” said Felicity. “Three generations of Ciesloks.”

“Show me this other room,” grumbled the chief.

And as Felicity led the way, Officer Wilson stayed behind with Mabel to guard the others. Reece had pressed the two-by-four into Wilson’s hand and told him not to hesitate to use it. Wilson said he wouldn’t think twice. Apparently he disliked being shot as much as the others did, and was peeved at the thought of being turned into a stuffed version of himself.

The procession arrived in the next room, where the collection of stuffed professionals was still on display, and the chief scratched his scalp, expelling an astonished cry. “Christ almighty! This gang is probably the worst bunch of serial killers we’ve ever caught here on the island!”

“And that’s not all, Dad,” Alice said. “They were going to keep adding to their collection until they’d collected all the professions in the world.”

“How many professions are there?” Felicity asked.

“A lot,” Alice thought.

“Yeah, they had their work cut out for them,” Rick remarked. “There’s still a bunch of them missing. I don’t see a tax auditor, a senator, a Wall Street trader, a DMV clerk, an insurance salesman, a lawyer…”

“Don’t give me ideas,” said Reece.

They stood gazing at the poor souls who’d fallen prey to this ruthless gang of stuffers, and finally the chief broke the silence. “We need to catch the other culprit before she can do more harm.”

“Maybe we should ask Tony,” Felicity suggested.

“Tony?” asked the chief.

“Reece’s pony,” she explained. “He’s the one who came to fetch you.”

“Dad,” said Alice, taking his arm and giving it a tight squeeze. “Thank you so much for showing up.”

“That’s all right, honey,” he said warmly. “I have to admit that when Tony showed up at the office, I had my doubts there for a moment.”

“Not something you see every day,” Louise agreed.

Felicity remembered that Officer Rhythm wasn’t in on the secret about ghosts. “Um, you probably think this is all very weird?” she asked tentatively.

“You mean, between the ghost pony asking for help and the gang of stuffers kidnapping and murdering innocent people all over the county? Yeah, I have to admit I was skeptical at first. But then there were the rumors, of course.”

“What rumors?” Alice asked.

“Rumors about ghosts roaming the streets of Happy Bays. And about you and the other ladies of the watch committee collaborating with the undead.”

“Don’t—don’t tell anyone, you hear?” Chief Whitehouse admonished her.

She laughed. “Who would I tell? Nobody would believe me.”

“What about Officer Wilson?” Felicity asked. “Does he know?”

“Well, he’s heard the same rumors, of course. But Wilson’s a skeptic. He told me personally it’s all just a bunch of hooey and old wives’ tales.”

They all laughed, for that was exactly what they’d all thought themselves at first.

“Let’s not cure him of that illusion,” Mabel suggested.

“Yeah, let’s keep him in the dark for now,” Chief Whitehouse agreed.

They all decided not to let anyone else in on the secret of the ghost world intermingling with their own. And as they strode from the creepy room, Felicity was glad to be out of there.

She and Alice hung back as they passed through the lab.

“If this is the kind of stuff we’re going to be exposed to from now on, I think we need to make one thing clear,” she told her friend.

“What’s that?”

“We need to have some kind of protector. The ghost world consists of good spirits and bad ones, and how are we to know which is which?”

Alice thought about this. “Well, we have Spot,” she said, “and now Tony.”

“I know, but they’re animal spirits. They don’t always grasp the finer aspects of the human condition and might not be able to steer us clear of the kind of evil spirits roaming the netherworld.”

She felt that if they were going to continue this work, they needed help from the other side. Some spirit who would assist them in the cases they were going to take on.

“I for one believe that we’ll meet the good spirits who will reach out and help us,” Alice said. “At least so far this has been the case.”

Alice was right, Felicity had to admit, but she would still feel more safe if they had a representative of the spirit world who was ostensibly on their side.

“We need to talk to Brian about this,” she said. “Maybe he can help us.”

And with those words, they walked out the front door of the manor, and out into the open. The sun was hovering just above the horizon but was still giving of its best. Both Felicity and Alice heaved a sigh of relief.

Chief Whitehouse had called in more officers to comb the house, and the coroner’s office had been put on high alert. They would soon be arriving to process the crime scene and start work on the bodies. One culprit was still at large, however. The chief was going to interrogate Rae and Ray personally and try to find out what Fabiola was up to.

Then he sent them home to recover, with the promise that he would drop by later that evening to take all of their statements. This was one of the biggest cases his office had ever handled. He had his work cut out for him.

And as Felicity steered the van home, she suddenly felt how bone-tired she was. The foursome occupying the old van was remarkably quiet. It had been a long day, and being hit with tranq darts over and over hadn’t helped.

“I can’t wait to get some rest,” she said, driving at a leisurely pace.

The others agreed that that was a great idea.

“Christ,” Rick grumbled as he flipped through the messages on his phone.

“What is it, honey?” she asked.

“Remember Dad tried to rope me into seducing Grover’s wife?”

“What about it?”

“He’s recruited Virgil Scattering instead.”

“What?!” Alice cried.

Rick laughed. “Poor Virgil is at the Ritz-Carlton as we speak, trying to put his magic spell on Emilia Calypso, with Dad lending moral support!”

Felicity shook her head. She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Poor Virgil,” she said. “I’ll bet he’s never even kissed a woman before.”

Alice bit her lip. “I know he’s never kissed a woman before.”

They all looked at her. “How do you know?” Reece wanted to know.

“Because he once told me that he wanted me to be his first kiss.” She shrugged. “And since I know for a fact that I never kissed him...”

Virgil had had a crush on Alice since kindergarten, though it had taken him until a few months ago to finally come clean about it.

“Maybe we should save him from this ordeal,” Felicity suggested. Though she felt like death warmed over, Virgil was a friend, and she didn’t agree with Chazz using him for his own benefit—whatever that benefit might be.

“Virgil is a big boy,” Rick countered. “He can take care of himself.”

There was a momentary silence, then they all cried out, “No, he can’t!”

And with this, Felicity did a U-turn, and soon they were on their way to New York. Chief Whitehouse would have to wait to get their statements.