"Oh, Tom, my man, what have you done?" said Willy aloud,
"And Jesse ?" he choked up and then went silent, the pain intense.
His nerves were now on edge, adrenalin pumping through his veins. He just had to get into the house. He swung the ax, ready to go, when out of the blue Tom materialized behind him, smirking, his arms folded over his chest.
"What are you doing?"
"The door was locked."
"As well it should be."
"Where's Jesse?" Willy asked.
"Sleeping."
Willy grabbed Tom by the shirt and was about to lift him off the ground, when Tom punched him in the gut with astounding strength and resolve.
"You imbecile! You lout! You fucking idiot!"
Willy shuddered as Tom threw the shovel at him.
"Take this, bury him!"
Willy did not react.
"Place is nearly full. That corner there ?" Tom pointed.
"Put him in the ground!" he growled.
Willy nodded. As Tom was about to leave, Willy asked in a weak voice, barely above a whisper:
"Is she okay?"
"As okay as a useless cunt will ever be!" Tom shot back and marched off.
Willy, at first dumbfounded, set to work with the shovel, although a part of him, the Willy-most part of him, would have preferred to go thundering after Tom with the ax. He needed Tom for now, though; Tom had money, a house, and this was ? a sort of a job. And perhaps there was still time to save Jesse.
Willy's shoulders slumped. He started to dig, but deep in his heart, he knew he could never dig fast enough.
Chapter 22
'I must have slept,' Jesse thought, as she slowly regained consciousness. Her immediate surroundings were covered with a dense white fog; she could only see her bare feet, and a part of the marble floor, but that was it. The floor was a clue to her understanding she was in the Gallery. She did not panic, she was far too drowsy.
She tried to wiggle her toes. Her mind registered that she was doing it - but the toes were not moving. She concentrated. After much effort, the big toe twitched and wagged to and fro. She felt immensely relieved. Jesse listened. There were strange sounds to be heard, bits of croaking, some grunting, even words!
Now fear set in. She tried to scream, but she couldn't move. Behind her, from the direction of the mother mummy, a swoosh was heard, as if fabric (and lots of it) had rubbed against multiple surfaces ?
'Tom's mother ? stood up? All by herself?' thought Jesse.
She tried to close her eyes, and that worked.
Reliving the past, for comfort, she tried to remember the day it was Halloween for her and Tom. Oh yes, there had been lots of candy and next to no supervision. They were allowed to roam all over the neighborhood and into other 'turfs'. No grownup had really paid attention.
Tom's Aunt Sophie and his Uncle Umberto had been drinking ? drinking heavily.
Jesse squeezed her eyes shut, and it worked. It brought on a soothing darkness. Her right foot twitched, she could move it! Whatever Tom had mixed into her glass of wine, it was beginning to wear off!
Jesse said a silent prayer. 'Please, dear God, if you exist, get me out of here!'
'Who are you?' a voice in her head asked. A voice she did not know.
One of the mummies barked. A lone, weak, whining bark. He tried again, but only managed a cracking sound.
'She isn't really dead ?' another voice said.
'We will lose everything ?' the mother wailed, 'he needed to stop at twelve.'
Now the others were trying to move and talk. One fell.
'Did the mother fall?' asked Jesse into the dark void of her mind.
'No.'
'She is still on her feet.'
'It's the best she's ever done.'
'I'm Heather,' a voice said and then came a scream, a muffled scream.
'Heather, what are you doing here?'
'I can't find my dog.'
'He's not one of us ?'
'He's been looking for you outside ?'
'Where outside?"
'Tom didn't bother burying him.'
'Rolled him up in a tarp, he's behind the shed, under crates and wooden planks and things ?'
'It took me a week to walk to the window when Tom was in the hospital and I looked down into the yard. There he was. Wagging his ghost tail at me.'
'Fine dog.'
'So he doesn't come here?' wailed Heather in terror.
No one answered.
Jesse fought back the tears. She was obviously going to be the next victim of Tom's embalming arts.
'Don't cry ?' the mother corpse said.
'We have it nice here.'
'We're not as hopeless as the ones buried in the dirt outside.'
'We can still be found!'
'We are still beautiful, as if we were ? still alive.'
'They can even leave the casket open, so everyone can say goodbye ?'
'Alas, everyone has forgotten me!'
And they began to sob and to wail, it was an awful sound. Their mental voices were overlapped by their weak ability to communicate with their embalmed bodies, a cacophony of barks, grunts, moans and stifled screams were heard.
Tom barged in, his face contorted with a venomous fury.
"STOP IT!" he screamed.
"Or I will bury you in the dirt in the mountains where no one will ever, ever find you!"
'Oh, Tom, how can you be so very cruel?"
Jesse cringed. She did not want to move or twitch. Tom marched through the Gallery defiantly, roughly seating the mummies back to their seats where they belonged. Not however, the mother. He hit her hard from behind, so that she fell flat on her face. Another corpse -already on the floor -, he kicked viciously, over and over again.
The collective moan of agony did not escape Jesse's inner ear. She was perplexed by Tom's sudden about-face.
'Why can I hear you?' she asked.
'Because of that day you came and saw us. On Halloween.'
'You are part of the family.'
'And always will be.'
Chapter 23
"We'll do the best we can to find her, rest assured," Officer Chad Donovan told his old friend Rickerson.
The other man nodded solemnly.
"She's never done this to me before."
He ran a shaky hand through his grimy hair. A three-day stubble graced his cheeks.
"Heather ran all over town, all the time, but she ? always came home."
Chad looked down at the tips of his boots.
"She's been looking for that dog," he said.
"Just about the whole town knows that."
Rickerson eyed his friend warily.
"Without evidence, I can't get a search warrant for Tom's place."
"His family bought everyone off."
"I'm going over to see Tom tonight."
"Be careful," Rickerson warned.
"He's one hell of a crazy coot," he continued, "but you know that. What you don't know is that strays are living there now."
"That so?" asked Chad, opening the door of his police cruiser.
"Man and a woman."
"Linda, the waitress at the burger joint had me looking for a couple of newcomers, could that be them?"
"I have no idea. Why?"
"Just a hunch."
"How's Linda?"
"She's a real fine lady. Always has my favorite donuts ready ?" Chad smiled.
The two men laughed, as the police officer got into his Chevy. Rickerson leaned on the door, talking to Chad through the open window.
"I'll check Tom's new tenants out tonight," Chad said.
"Fill me in, will ya?"
"Sure. And thanks for keeping me in the loop, too."
"If you hear anything about my baby doll Heather, let me know immediately, day or night? Okay?"
"Of course."
"Bye."
"Bye."
As Chad Donovan drove away, Rickerson watch
ed the police car disappear into the horizon of a red-golden setting sun.
"Now for Facebook," he muttered.
He threw a stone out into the driveway and turned around towards Tom's barn.
Chapter 24
I sit staring at his face, or rather, at the abyss that was once his face. The brute buried him in the shed not quite an hour ago ? and yet, here he is, in a video clip on Facebook. Oh, the marvels of modern technology!
He came knocking on my front door asking so many questions. Grinning from ear to ear, trying to get me to remember some long ago Halloween when we had gone trick or treating with Jesse, whom he had recently served cherry pie (pie!). I asked him to come in. I lead him up into the Gallery. And yes, he recalled the mannequins.
When he realized they were mummies, I hit him in the face with my shovel. My trusted shovel ? I hit him again and again, until his face started to look like cherry pie. I heard my mother moan ? Oh, mother! I am so sorry, dear.
But I am what I am. I cannot ask Jesus for forgiveness.
Officer Donovan stood leaning against his police car, sizing up the ancient, chipped-paint, gray and dark blue Victorian mansion Tom called his home. Ground floor and first and second floor windows were mostly boarded-up. Only the third floor windows (some locals referred to the place as The Gallery) had red elegant curtains and seemed to have been cleaned spotless most of the time.
If he hadn't been searching for Heather, and on a mission to find out what the newcomers knew about the murdered and then disappearing elderly couple, he would have stayed as far away from the haunted pile of shit as he possibly could have.
He could still see her, even after all these years. Her fake red-colored hair, a wayward frizz about her face, her stained yellow teeth, resembling pointed fangs, and not human teeth. Her cold, cold hand as she pulled him inside.
"I don't want to come in," he had stammered, shaking.
"Oh, but you must!" Aunt Sophie had said, sporting an accent, which sounded fake and affected.
"Come in and humor Aunt Sophie - or you won't get any candy."
Chad had heard all kinds of stories and rumors. How Sophie and Umberto helped their funeral parlor along, when no one was dying ? stories of dread and old country bullshit, how they had a secret formula that made the dead look better in their coffins than they had when they were still alive.
As the stories made their rounds, they became more and more embellished with odd-sounding details. Chad had been a skinny kid dressed as Batman's Robin, and she had pulled him inside and slammed the door behind him.
He had fought like crazy. Uncle Umberto stood waiting behind the door; he grabbed Chad and swung him over a powerful shoulder. Umberto began climbing the stairs. Chad was screaming, he was praying, begging, and he called on Jesus to save him.
"JESUS, HELP ME! JESUS, HELP ME!"
They had arrived on the third floor landing; Umberto was panting. A tinted glass door separated them from the Gallery. Chad did not understand this, but he knew in his heart Sophie and Umberto were intent on hurting him, and he would never see his Mom and Dad again.
"Not Jesus," Sophie said.
She was climbing the stairs behind them, lifting her colorful skirts, revealing green knitted stockings.
'Perfect for a witch,' Chad had thought.
"Umberto, not Jesus!"
"Twelve, right?" Umberto said, still breathing heavily from the exertion of carrying a boy up so many flights of stairs. Umberto was overweight.
"But ? he would be twelve."
"I'm not sure ? and he is yelling Jesus already. Perhaps he'd be only Eleven-and-A-Half. Then they will all start moving and moaning and whispering. I can't live with that. I can't do that again. "
"Okay. Okay."
"God is such a watchmaker," Aunt Sophie moaned.
"Everything has to be just so, and there can be no deviation. That's what they're all telling me."
"Sophie ? they're dead."
"You know they are still here."
He had grabbed Chad by the wrist and forced him back down the stairs. Sophie and Umberto had thrown a handful of candy corn in a bag, shoved it at Chad and sent him out the front door.
No one had seen either Sophie or Umberto in many years.
Chad had not bothered telling his family about the incident. It had come back to him in nightmares for years (especially once he saw what he saw on Facebook). He had found Aunt Sophie sitting astride his chest in the wee hours of the morning, mumbling crazy shit like:
"You are buried on my land. You need to go."
Which made no sense. But it did sting. It was unnerving.
So Chad hesitated before entering Tom's property. He did not want to see the Aunt Sophie nightmares as being prophetic.
Chapter 25
Willy smacked his lips. He was dreaming about cheeseburgers, and in his mind's eye, he saw the melted cheese and the onions. Something cold was creeping up his arms. Oh, no, he shuddered, not another dream of Aunt Sophie, wrestling her for burial space! Squinting, he recognized Jesse's black nail polish with pink polka dots, the fingernails cracked, torn, chipped and dirty.
"Jesse!" he shouted, jumping up out of his chair.
"Hi, Will," she answered, her voice tiny and slow.
Willy shook his head and slapped himself, but he was still drunk, on whiskey and sleep. He rubbed his eyes, but could not believe what he was seeing. As if Jesse could read his mind, she said:
"I'm okay. Really."
"Jesse ? what did he do to you?"
"Cooked me some dinner, put shit in my booze."
"And then?"
"Found myself next to the dead dolls up in the Gallery."
Willy fell silent.
"We gotta get outta here."
"Where would we go?"
"Where is he now?"
"The mummies told me he has a high-tech office in the cellar."
"The mummies told you ?"
"Yes."
When he stared at her incredulously, she added:
"They are still here not only as bodies, but also as spirits. They have not received a proper burial. So their souls cannot move on. Meaning, they still have access to their bodies, if only a very limited kind of access."
"Fuck. What did that monster put in your booze?"
"I couldn't move, but I saw and heard everything."
"And you still think it's a good idea to stay?"
"Where are we going to go ? why do we keep running?"
"This is shit."
"Let's stay a little longer."
"Pack up and drive away, really fast."
"Aunt Sophie will follow."
"She stays on her land."
"Ha! She stays in your mind."
I overheard their stupid conversation. I had it on audio. The 'mummies' told her most of their secrets. How sweet of them. But some things still don't add up, in fact, a lot of things do not add up. For example, who digs up the bodies buried in the yard, the barn, the shed, and seats them in chairs to make video clips to post to my Facebook wall, clips in which the bodies are already decomposed?
Oh, the mannequins have talked to me, too, or tried. And Aunt Sophie rides me in dreams the way she rides everyone else. The only one who ever really gets my attention, though, is the big one, Mommy. Mommy Mummy. She is the most beautiful, she is also the strongest. I need to clean her up, soon.
I will prepare the serum and recreate her face. No! Yes. No!
Torn is what I have always been. And torn is what I will always be.
Chapter 26
"Jesse!"
"Will?
"Can you make me some coffee? Really strong black coffee?"
"Sure."
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah. Thanks for asking."
Willy sauntered to the kitchen sink and splashed cold water on his face, not once, but dozens of times.
While he was toweling his face dry, he felt his heart sink at the sight of Jesse's emaciated back. Wh
en had she lost so much weight? Her ribs were clearly visible underneath a tight, supremely threadbare T-shirt.
"Here you go," she said, handing him a steaming cup of hot, black coffee.
Willy took two quick gulps, nearly spitting it out. He forced himself to swallow, the pain roaring down his throat. But it cleared his mind. And with an enemy like Tom, he could not risk a second of inattention.
Jesse looked at him with wide-open eyes.
"Want me to get the ax?"
"Not alone."
"Let's take at least a knife ?"
"One of the guys who sold liquor and drugs, sold guns, too."
"We're dealing with a whole new dimension here, Will. Believe me, the ax is best."
Willy chuckled. He laid his arm around Jesse's waist.
"Are ya going to kill him?"
"His family - they don't die."
"They live on in horrible ways."
"This is it. We stop running."
"Okay, Will. I'll go with you."
Willy walked through the house, hand in hand with Jesse, and listened and strained to hear. It was as if the house were holding its breath, tricking them with silence and normalcy. Before leaving through the back door, Willy said:
"So it's two sides, those buried outside in the earth, and the ones unnaturally kept sitting up as dolls and mummies. Both sides are miserable."
"Most of them were murdered."
"So why aren't the police crawling all over the place?"
"We should've been in jail for those old folks long ago."
"Something else is up."
"The mother mummy said many faces were staring back at her, and she wanted to be beautiful only for Tom. Her face was a mommy face, and it had been turned into something filthy."
"I saw cameras in the Gallery."
"Tom watches them."
"Only Tom?"
"You mean?"
"The internet ?"
"Who would wanna watch a corpse all day?"
"Jerk-offs, I guess. And perverts."
Jesse shook her head incredulously.