The masked man was thrown against a wall and then picked up high. He was thrust over the bannister into the depths below. He screamed, his mask lifted, his face scratched beyond recognition, while he was still in mid-air.
"What is that crackling noise?" one of the mummies yelled with his internal voice.
"It's fire," the mother mummy said solemnly.
"They are setting this house on fire."
Chapter 35
I can imagine they are shrieking. Rickerson's thugs are turning this beautiful old Victorian mansion into kindlewood. So that Jesse and Willy will let Daddy Thug go. He sits next to me, Rickerson does, despondent. He is not sure he will survive.
Willy's eyes have just snapped open. For once, he has slept without the ghost of Aunt Sophie haunting his dreams. Now he must fight. And he must let me fight with him. Then we will bury them all in the yard. It will be a lot of work. Soon they will be missed by their families. And then more will come.
I always liked burying them. I worked all night, and when I was finished, I would watch the sun rising to greet a new day. I would admire the colors coming up ever so slowly over the horizon. As slowly as Mother Mummy raising her arm and her hand to touch my cheek. It took her forever. But she still loved me so much, after all these years, she shunned no pain to achieve her end. She wanted me to know that. She wanted to show me, that love is not for this world, or for this time, it is for eternity.
"Willy, please wake up. I need you."
"I'm awake, just blurry," Willy said.
"Rickerson's men are crawling all over the house!"
"So let him out," Willy drawled.
Rickerson came up to the bars of the cage. He rattled them.
"You think?"
"Sure."
"He will kill us."
"I think they need Tom."
Jesse tried to find the right key, but her hands were shaking so badly, she dropped all of them. Tom screamed. Smoke was flooding into the cellar from the door further up.
"Hurry!"
"They need Tom. He's a performer. They saw him kill a man with a shovel."
"Shut up," hissed Rickerson, eager to get out.
Jesse finally managed to unlock the cage.
Rickerson's thugs came crashing through the cellar door. They started to run down the stairs, but Rickerson was running up. They turned.
"Kill them!" Rickerson called.
The thugs turned and shot downwards, at Jesse, Willy and Tom. They went diving for cover. Satisfied, Rickerson and his men ran off into the billowing clouds of smoke.
"Will!" yelled Jesse.
"We'll never get outta here alive!"
"There's another way out of here, come on, follow me!" called Tom, already retreating further back.
Jesse and Willy followed him, Willy had been hurt by a grazing bullet, his thigh was bleeding.
"I'm okay, keep going!" he yelled.
The three of them fled through a tunnel leading from the cellar to the barn. The door to the cellar Rickerson had gone through minutes earlier was slammed shut with great force, as were other doors, cutting the men off from the outside and from other floors of the house. A female voice cackled loudly as a misty apparition pointed long, feminine fingers here and there; hellish flames, orange and dark red, began following her commands.
"This is my land. You are intruders. I will punish you," Aunt Sophie hissed.
The mummies in the Gallery had all gone back to their seats, with the exception of the sad mummy who had only moved a little bit. The mother mummy was still standing; she was looking out the window, at the smoke, at the occasional flame that leapt up the side of the building to the third floor.
"We will all melt like wax," said one of the mummies fearfully.
Aunt Sophie flew past the entrance to the Gallery. She shrieked and laughed hysterically in passing, but was gone in an instant as well as was the smoke.
"She always protects us," Mother Mummy said, whispering.
"I wonder why."
"Isn't it obvious?" asked the sad mummy, as all the other mummies trembled inwardly and gasped at hearing the unfamiliar voice.
"You are her family, and she wants you to go into the light with her."
Chapter 36
Tom coughed; his lungs were filled with smoke. Jesse came up behind him, followed by Willy. The wooden door they had just passed through would not contain the smoke for long.
The barn was cool and quiet. Suddenly, the smoke from the fire was sucked back, it vanished. Tom stopped coughing. He hugged Jesse, laying his head on her shoulder. Jesse was crying and laughing at the same time.
"I think that was Sophie," she said gratefully.
"She's something," added Willy, eying his surroundings suspiciously, uncertain where the next danger and attack would come from.
A window, full of dust and dirt, caught his attention. Through the panes, he could make out another fire, burning on Rickerson's land. With his shirt sleeve (and a little saliva), he rubbed a square of the glass clean.
"Rickerson's place is going up," he remarked.
"They will find his charred body there," said Tom.
"And the remains of his men."
"Good for us," he added, "less work burying them all.
"They won't be buried on Aunt Sophie's land that way, she'll have more peace, too."
Willy sat down on the only chair in the barn. Jesse went to him and sat on his lap.
"Does your thigh hurt?" she asked.
"Not when your soft butt is on it," Willy lied.
"That ends 'Balm-Cam'and the serum business," said Tom.
"They've copied it by now."
"I doubt the dead will allow it," said Willy, sounding unusually mature.
"They have power in this world. They don't want death turning into a neverending circus."
"I'd say we leave town, with Tom," said Jesse.
"A lot of them may be involved and bought off, there might still be time to run. While they're covering their tracks."
"I can't leave my family," said Tom.
"Heaven knows I've thought of it every day for years now."
"But I don't think I can go," he added.
"The mother mummy, right?" asked Willy.
"Right."
"I'm sorry I made fun of you, I was drunk."
"We should get back to the house."
"We should go the way we came," Jesse suggested.
"This time, they might really be sending the police."
"Yeah, their money is involved."
"Okay. And I promise to lock everything up and give you keys."
"Thanks. We're been hoping for that."
"Or maybe I should put you in the cage for a while."
"Let's fight this fight together," said Willy.
Tom nodded, but did not look Willy in the eye.
"Good enough," said Willy and opened the wooden door leading back into the tunnel.
Chapter 37
Linda washed her hands slowly in the sink and paused before looking up. She ran the water again, buying time. She had closed the diner for the night, half an hour ago. She was alone, had done some sweeping. Pulling a paper towel out of the dispenser, she forced herself to stare into the mirror.
At first, she saw only herself. Her tired eyes, her blown-apart hairdo. Then slowly, out of the shadows of the diner restroom, a spirit emerged, very old at first, then turning into a younger man. This was Uncle Giuseppe, 'the unfortunate one'. Linda held her breath, and let her soul wander into the depths of the reflection. The fear of losing control was great. If she did not confront that fear, the specter would follow her again and again, appearing in her car rearview, in every shiny surface. In rain puddles.
"What do you want?" she asked.
The hazy apparition said nothing. He was handsome. She only had one frayed photograph. Her imagination took that photograph and concocted a hallucination. But it wasn't so. She did not have that much of an imagination. Linda trie
d to concentrate on her earliest memories, of her grandmother from Italy teaching her words. When she thought of those early words, Uncle Giuseppe smiled.
"You want your peace, don't you?" she whispered.
She had seen the Gallery many times, on people's phones, on their tablets. She had no clue how to get there on her own computer. Uncle Giuseppe was their experiment. His corpse had been taken, drained and processed, then it had been shipped to America as proof of the revolutionary embalming product's success.
"Do you want me to go there ? to the house? Is that what you want?" she asked the ghost in the mirror.
Uncle Giuseppe nodded. He showed her scenes of his life, his childhood, his first love, his hard work, his poverty. She watched, mesmerized. She also felt a dread of unknown proportions. Wealthy men were involved in this, Rickerson controlled half the town at least. It was better than marijuana; the secret embalming fluid was exported all over the world, to places as far away as Russia. It worked especially well on pets. It worked nicely, even if the person in question was not really dead.
Linda shuddered at the thought of the horrors going on, without any one of the people committing such horrific crimes being brought to justice. The need to make death sweeter was just too great. No one wanted to deal with dying. You bought the embalming fluid, and social security checks kept flowing into your joint account. Oh, the stories she had heard ?
Some of the embalmed went from mummy to zombie and even learned to talk again. The embalming fluid kept them beautiful for years, even for decades. They did not need to eat. They did not really move on.
"I will drive over there, but I'm not sure they will let me in," Linda stammered.
The ghost nodded again. He disappeared, and she felt a tremendous sadness wash over her. She had always known she was Italian, but she had not known her whole story. Aunt Sophie had paid for her for many years. Brought her to America, perhaps because she felt guilty for having used her Uncle Giuseppe. There was a rumor, the diner had belonged to Sophie's trust, and now belonged to Tom.
Linda took off her apron. She did not care much for the vagrants, Jesse and Willy. And she was sure they had callously killed those old people for a meal and a drink. Unlocking her phone, she called Chad Donovan, the police officer, and asked him to meet her at the Victorian mansion where Tom lived. He told her he was already on his way there. It had been torched, and was burning to the ground as they were speaking.
Chapter 38
Chad Donovan squinted behind his Ray-Bans. There was the sting of smoke, and a minute ago, leaving the highway, he had been sure he had seen smoke rising from Tom's house. Now, after having made the turn into the right street, he ascertained the house was untouched, - blazing orange flames licked up from the direction of Rickerson's mannequin factory - behind Tom's house. Chad gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. There was a sour feeling in the pit of his stomach.
How often had he driven past these same old houses, vowing to place a call to the FBI, vowing to tell someone about what was happening in this, his home town? How many times had he brushed the thoughts aside, sure the Feds were somehow already in on it, they had to be. The internet was carrying this hot paranormal shit out into the world.
Even as a boy, he had heard the rumors, Rickerson's beautiful mannequins were corpses, of girls, of prostitutes picked up on the highway. He cringed. He had heard about it, he had done nothing, had never checked to see what was real. Well, he had become a cop. But a fearsome cop. And anyway. He could always blame it on the system.
But as he drove closer to the house, - indeed Rickerson's home and factory were on fire -, it became painfully clear to him, that he was nearing the moment when he would be out of excuses, when he had to face the truth, when all the dead people had to be dug up, or taken out of the mannequin displays and 'galleries'.
It would be a nightmare crime scene of epic proportions. Even in slowing the vehicle, his mind raced to forbidden places, trying to find ways to avert the inevitable.
He parked in front of Tom's house. He looked up at the eerie Victorian mansion with the taste of puke in his mouth.
"Bitch, I am coming," he muttered.
He marched right up to the porch. At the front door, the doorbell was hanging loose and the paint was badly chipped. He knocked, no, he pounded on the door with his fist.
No one opened. He pulled his gun out of the holster and yelled:
"Open up! This is Officer Donovan!"
As he was about to kick the door in, it opened with a swoosh! And there stood Tom, in a suit, all dressed up.
"Welcome, Officer Donovan. So glad you could come."
Chad put the gun away and glared at Tom.
"We have gotten so many prank calls about you ? when there was word about a fire, hell, no fool of ours wanted to come on over here - or even believe it."
"So you would let his house burn to the ground? I hear sirens approaching from the other end. I think it's Rickerson's that is burning, and it is no prank call. Aren't you informed, Officer?"
"How many, you monster? A hundred? Even more? This is going to be the worst crime scene in the history of our fine state ?" Donovan whispered, the exasperation evident in his voice.
"So come in."
Officer Donovan entered Tom's house warily. Tom shut the door. Jesse and Willy were standing in the hallway, leaning against the bannister.
"Show him," Tom ordered.
Jesse and Tom turned and started up the flights of stairs leading to the third floor Gallery. There was another knock on the door.
"Busy day," sighed Tom, rolling his eyes and opening.
There stood Linda, the waitress.
"Hello."
"Hi," said Tom flatly.
"You don't know me. But what's beating around the bush? I only recently found out about my entire family history. One of your mummies, he's called 'the sad one', or 'the unfortunate one', he is up there in your special room. He was the first lab rat, so-to-speak, your family tried the secret embalming fluid on. I would like to have him back. He is my Uncle Giuseppe."
"He has reached out to you ?"
"Yes, he has."
"Then I will respect his decision. Come."
With his index finger, he motioned Linda up the carpeted staircase.
"It's on the third floor. Officer Donovan will be up there by now."
Linda nodded. When he was sure she was busy climbing the stairs, Tom quietly walked out the front door without another glance, and quickly shut and locked it. He walked to his rusty pickup, got behind the wheel and drove off.
Chapter 39
The highway is spread out before me in the noonday sunshine, like a beautiful whore in a motel room. I think I'll get me one of those before long, and lots of whiskey to go with the sex to forget ? For now, I am just in love with the road. I am one to work with the shovel; but Willy, - Willy prefers the ax. Has he split Chad Donovan's head in two yet? I wonder.
I don't know how long I have before I am thrown in jail.
All I know right now is I am finally free, I have left my mother's dead but beautiful body, my family, my land, for an unknown future, running from the law. I do not care to think about what happens when they will arrest me. Every minute of freedom is a gift. Mine to keep.
Chad was raising his phone to speak. Willy blocked his arm. Chad did not take kindly to the gesture.
"It can wait, don't you think?" asked Willy.
"Yeah," said Jesse.
"The fire is back there."
Linda stepped in. They all turned, surprised by her visit. It did not take her long to find 'the unfortunate one'. She ignored the others - both living and dead -, and knelt before him, crossing her arms on his knees. He was perfect, doll-like, tranquil, without blemish, without wrinkle.
Chad Donovan shut off his cell phone and put it back in his pocket. He jogged towards the door. The sun illuminated the room, through red velvet curtains and half-drawn shades.
&n
bsp; Jesse gave Mother Mummy a kiss on her cool cheek. Willy sat down on the floor. Voices could be heard, shouting, as men and women labored to get the fire on Rickerson's land under control. But there were also whispers in the room, voices of the restless dead.
Jesse signed wanting a cigarette, and Willy only shook his head. She left. Willy and Linda were alone with 13 embalmed corpses.
The afternoon wore on. Linda fell asleep; Willy was lost in reverie. Later, when Linda stretched, she looked up and saw her Uncle Giuseppe looking down. In the time that passed, he opened his eyes and focused them on her. She was not afraid. She smiled up at him.
"You get used to it," remarked Willy.
"I never believed in God, or in life after death, or in anything."
"This place changes you," he added, attempting to smile.
"I have seen the Gallery on people's phones," Linda said.
"I would pour some coffee in their cups for a refill and they would gush about how the mummies had moved. I thought it was just another stupid trick."
"It'll go down as one. But we know better."
"Yes, now I know better," Linda said.
Willy shifted uncomfortably. He was still sitting on the floor.
"You know we killed those people, don't you?" he asked.
"I'm pretty sure you did it," said Linda.
"But it doesn't matter one way or the other. I saw them dead in their car. But by the time I got Nick Edwards to leave his hamburgers frying to come outside with me, they were gone."
"What?"
"Not the car. Just the corpses."
"Rickerson's men?"
"I guess so."
"The junkies up on Lover's Peak tell me lots of people here disappear."
"Rickerson's mannequins."
"What?" said Willy, persistent, "they end up in Macy's store windows or where?"
"I do not know. So we did not call the police. And you are not guilty, except you are."
"I kill, honey. I do."