The Frighteners, Page 9

  “What do you supposed happened?” the curator asked.

  “Well, if this were California, I’d blame an earthquake, but you don’t get many of them in Maine, do you?”

  “Not many, no,” Osborne confirmed, finally prying his fingers away from Frank’s card, which had become clammy with perspiration.

  The Reaper closed in on Janet and then stretched a handful of spikelike fingers in her direction. Suddenly a pattern of raised welts appeared on her forehead—it was the number thirty-nine.

  Stuart found his voice. “He’s going to kill her,” he said.

  The Reaper’s fingers, at first pointed at Janet’s forehead, lowered to point at her chest. He was about to plunge his hand into her chest when Cyrus yelled, “Don’t mess with her, man!”

  Stuart whipped his head in the direction of his friend, who he had considered until that moment to be no more than an aging disco nut with no backbone or interest in anyone but himself.

  Acting more like a linebacker, Cyrus charged forward, moving swiftly through the crowd of dignitaries and tackling the Reaper, knocking the creature off balance. Locked together, they slid along the polished museum floor right through the crowd, which had begun to move away in any case, the coffin episode having ended.

  Then with incredible grace, the Reaper rose, towering above Cyrus like a dark angel, its slitlike yellow eyes blazing with fury. In one fluid movement, the Reaper produced a long, wooden staff from beneath his cloak. He raised it, then thumped the base on the floor. A huge, jagged blade swung out of the staff and locked into place with a metallic click. The blade shimmered with an ethereal glow. The Reaper had his scythe.

  Cyrus leaped to his feet, ready to make another lunge at the huge, looming menace. He had no chance. The Reaper swung his scythe in a smooth and deadly gesture that sliced Cyrus across the chest, cutting through his suit and shirt and into his ectoplasmic body. Cyrus dropped to his knees, holding his middle, ectoplasm spilling out of the slice across his chest.

  “He cut me!” Cyrus said, shocked. “I don’t believe it!”

  Cyrus and the Judge watched fearfully from where they had taken shelter, inside a huge statue of Osiris, the Egyptian god of the underworld.

  Leaving Cyrus, the Reaper glided toward Janet, who was shaken by the sarcophagus episode but seemed happy it was over. She stood tall, smiling at the crowd.

  “I can’t tell you what happened here, ladies and gentlemen, but there appears to be no serious damage to the coffin. Shall we move on?”

  But she winced as the Reaper thrust its hand into her chest and breathed its hellish breath on her cheek. The hooded cowl nuzzled her neck as the creature buried its arm deeper and deeper into her chest.

  “Don’t fear the Reaper,” it said silkily.

  Janet gasped as the creature clutched her heart and squeezed the life out of it.

  Nine

  Frank ran down the quiet and deserted streets of Fairwater, moving in the direction of the museum, hoping beyond hope that the creature had chosen to go somewhere else—preferably another planet. He stopped to catch his breath and looked around him, searching for any sign of life; even a rat or a police car would have been welcome. But life itself seemed to be missing from the streets. It was like finding yourself in a rock quarry at midnight with no breeze. Nothing stirred, nothing at all.

  Then Bannister heard the sound of distant yelling and cries for help. He turned in the direction of the sound and saw the museum, and at that moment the night sky rumbled and crackled. What had been a star-filled canopy was suddenly filled with black and angry clouds. The fabric of the dark sky seemed to rip open and a shaft of brilliant white light like a gigantic laser beamed down into the museum.

  Frank dashed down the distance that remained between himself and the building, and dashed up the steps. The red carpet seemed, in that instant, like a tissue soaked with blood. A few dazed-looking museum goers stumbled down it, shaken by the falling coffin and the horrible death that occurred moments afterward.

  Bannister dashed through the lonely museum corridors, his footfalls as loud as cannon shots. When he arrived in the gallery where once stood the sarcophagus of Queen Merytaten, he found Janet King lying on the floor, her body bathed in a pool of brilliant white light. Above her rose the corridor of white light, which of course was visible only to her spirit, the emanations, and Bannister. Having done his work, the Reaper was now nowhere to be seen.

  A man pounded furiously, and futilely, on Janet’s chest, trying to revive her, as a crowd of nervous onlookers stood by. Frank ran into the middle of the gallery then stopped short, reacting to the brilliance of the corridor of light. He looked up at it, recalling how it reached from the very heavens through the roof and upper floors of the building. Then he looked down and watched Janet’s spirit leave her corpse. The spirit seemed confused by the white light.

  Frank rushed through the crowd of onlookers, reaching out to Janet’s spirit, touching the shoulder of her soul. She turned to Frank in that instant, her final one on earth, tears in her eyes. He saw then that the number thirty-nine was tattooed on her forehead, but was fading away.

  Her spirit turned away from Bannister then, moved rapidly up into the corridor of light, and vanished. As it disappeared, the light snapped off.

  The man who had been trying to pull her back to life hung his head. “She’s gone,” he mumbled.

  Frank moved toward him. “I know,” he said.

  “I did everything I could. I mean, I took a course in CPR at my son’s school. I did everything I could.”

  “No one’s blaming you.” Frank offered the man a hand to help him to his feet.

  “It must have been the shock when the coffin fell over.” Bannister looked at the sarcophagus, then at the marble plinth atop which it once stood.

  The man continued, “It was the damnedest thing I ever saw. The queen’s coffin started rocking back and forth and then fell onto the floor. You should have heard the noise. Miss King was really rattled by it. I guess she had a bad heart to begin with.”

  “I’m positive there was nothing you could have done.” Frank patted the man on the shoulder.

  “Mr. Bannister?” a frightened voice asked. It was the curator, a man long trained in the rigors of science who suddenly found himself an unwilling believer in the mysteries of the spirit world.

  “Yes?” Frank said, his attention torn away from the scene he had just witnessed.

  “Can we talk?”

  “Um . . . sure.”

  Osborne took Frank’s arm and led him away from the crowd.

  “What can I do for you, Mister . . .?”

  “Osborne, Amos Osborne. I’m curator of the museum.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Bannister said, a bit disjointedly.

  “I found a bunch of your cards before. I assume you left them.”

  “Ah, no, actually.” Frank rolled his eyes. “I have no idea how they might have gotten here.”

  “Well, I’m glad they did, because I held on to one. Maybe you can help us. We seem to have broken some sort of taboo.”

  “Taboo?” Frank asked.

  “You know, like the curse of Osiris or something?”

  “If I remember my mythology, it was her husband whose body was turned into a pillar or something? What happened here tonight. I mean, before the heart attack.”

  “Well, first this mummy leered at me. It was right after I threw some of your cards out.”

  Frank rolled his eyes again.

  “Then the queen’s sarcophagus started rocking back and forth, then—”

  “Frank!” Stuart said, rising out of the floor behind the curator’s shoulder.

  Unaware of the presence of the emanation, Osborne continued stating his case. But now Frank’s attention was riveted to his spirit friend.

  “Please,” Osborne said, in a hushed voice. “You’ve got to help us.”

  “It’s bad, Frank,” Stuart said. “Cyrus has been cut.”

  Frank looke
d past him and saw Cyrus slumped against a glass display case, ectoplasm staining his white disco suit.

  “Shit,” Frank said, shocked.

  Thinking Bannister was talking to him, Osborne was momentarily stunned by this apparent rejection, and then spotted a group of paramedics who had just entered the building. “Excuse me one moment,” he said, and rushed off to greet them.

  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.